


Of Monsters & Memories

by GuenVanHelsing, thatfaerieprincess



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, BAMF Amanda Brotzman, Childhood Trauma, DGHDA Halloween Mini Bang, DrummerWolf, F/M, Fall Vibes, Gen, Halloween, Haunted Houses, Holistic OC, Hurt/Comfort, It's All Very Haunted, Martin Has a Very Bad No Good Time, Nightmares, Not heavy on the romance tho so can be read as gen, Osmund Priest is His Own Warning, Priest Brothers Theory, Project Blackwing (Dirk Gently), Project Bogle - Freeform, Pumpkins, Soft Rowdies, Spooky, The Rowdies Adopt Another Rowdy, Trauma in general, haunted memories, if this fic was a colour it would be rusty orange and brown and yellows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:35:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27273538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuenVanHelsing/pseuds/GuenVanHelsing, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatfaerieprincess/pseuds/thatfaerieprincess
Summary: As the weather gets chillier and the nights grow shorter, darkening dreams and a pumpkin spiced set of visions sets off a new adventure. Join Amanda and the Rowdy 3 as they navigate pumpkin fields, nightmares, a haunted house, and the family ties that brought them together.
Relationships: Amanda Brotzman & The Rowdy 3, Amanda Brotzman/Martin
Comments: 13
Kudos: 23
Collections: DGHDA Halloween Mini Bang 2020





	Of Monsters & Memories

Martin waited outside the small grocery store, mostly so he could have a smoke and let the world settle around him, the ground solid under his feet. Something crashed inside, followed by a shriek and raucous laughter, and Martin huffed a laugh on an exhale of smoke. Taking Cross inside a shop with small aisleways was just asking for a bull in a china shop. 

_“Mar_ tin,” said Amanda, and he turned on his heel, looking to her, always — she bounced out of the shop with more enthusiasm than he had in his tired bones. “Look what I _found!”_

She shoved a bag of bright orange _something_ at his face, and he squinted over his glasses at it, breathing a cloud of smoke to the side. “Pumpkins,” he drawled, and she smacked the bag into his chest — barely a tap. 

“Pumpkin _candy,”_ she said. _“Halloween_ stuff is out, Martin!” 

“Spooky season!” called Vogel, and he had an armful of candy corn when Martin glanced over at him, the younger Rowdy bending down to grab the one that had slipped from his tenuous grip and fallen to the ground. 

Pumpkins and corn candy… more vegetable in name than actual nutritional value, and probably more vegetable than Amanda had eaten in the past week. 

Martin couldn’t remember how much vegetables a regular person was supposed to eat, but he had a vague suspicion it couldn’t be supplemented by the candy kind. 

“C’mon, spaceman.” Amanda tapped the bag of candy pumpkins against his chest again, and his gaze flicked back to her, back from the distance. “They didn’t have the good graham crackers, so we’re gonna have to find another store.” 

“Time to ride, boys,” said Martin, and Vogel sprinted back to the store’s open door to lean inside and shout for Cross — he and Gripps bound out with bags of candy in the usual rainbow colours instead of Vogel and Amanda’s collection of fall ones. 

He took a step toward the van — Amanda was already there, clambering in enough to toss the candy to Beastie just to hear her shriek — and a lone orange leaf crunched under his boot. There were plenty of them, strewn across the dusty parking lot, and he watched, almost absently, as Amanda jumped back from the van and her own boots crunched on leaves as she stumbled back. 

Martin moved, noting how his boys all lifted their heads and honed in on her just as he did, only he got there first, catching Amanda when she toppled backwards as the vision took her. 

“Got you, Boss,” said Gripps, and Martin nodded. 

They always got her, their Drummer girl. 

_...his_ Drummer girl. 

—

The leaf crunched under her boot, and for a moment there was a scream in her ears, like she’d crushed the bones of something very small under her instead, and then Amanda was falling, faster and faster, and there was no one to catch her. 

She fell harder and faster, the expanse around her only black open nothing. Until it was something. The visions began in a flash, appearing before her eyes as she plummeted hard. A big old house, sad brown eyes she couldn’t recognize, leaves falling to the ground, game dice scattering on the floor, the sound of laughter, big orange pumpkins, a dusty wooden duck, warm spiced cider, screaming, crashing, broken wooden porch steps, and then howling wind carried the smell of apples with her as she felt the ground approaching. She braced herself for the inevitable slamming impact, but it never came. 

“I’ve gotcha, Drummer. Jus’ breathe.” Martin’s voice, right by her ear. One of his hands was curled in her hair, the other cradling her close to his body. She blinked her eyes open, slowly letting the light in. 

“There y’are,” he murmured. 

“Whatcha see, Boss!?” came an eager voice to her left. 

“Hang on now, give her a minute,” Martin chuckled smoothly. 

She turned and saw Vogel watching her expectantly. She smiled and patted his hand, looked up at Martin. 

“Where to, Boss?” he asked with a fond smirk. 

“I don’t know yet,” she said, but she could _feel_ it, the tug of the universe on her little leaf in the stream of creation. Something was definitely pulling her _somewhere,_ and it had an antsy jitteriness sinking into her skin. “It’s not _here,_ though.” 

Martin waited, always patient, and she frowned at him, frowned at the scattered candy on the ground around them. 

“Pumpkins,” she said. “Something about pumpkins.” 

—

Finding pumpkins in autumn hadn’t been _hard,_ since they were pretty much everywhere Amanda looked, but no matter the colour, shape, or size, none of them were quite _right._ She felt like Goldilocks testing all the bowls of oatmeal, but she couldn’t find the one that was _just right._

There was a sign beside the road — _Pumpkins Next Right_ — and Amanda pointed, catching Martin’s silent nod, and sat forward in her seat, swaying with the van as it rumbled over the uneven dirt of the driveway. 

Sure enough, there was an entire field full of pumpkins, already cut from the vine and just set out in the dried yellow grass, tipped over or standing proudly upright, row after uneven row. There were a couple other cars in the long parking lot — or Martin figured it had to be one, since the other two cars were parked there as if it were — and he swung the van to be sorta in line with the already parked vehicles, so at least they could drive past them back to the road if they needed to. 

There was a small, rather rickety-looking wooden farmstand set to the side of the pumpkin field, and Martin dumped a few dollars and a handful of change into the opening of the lockbox nailed to it. _Market Tomorrow!!_ read the hand-painted sign propped up alongside. 

Martin whistled — the Rowdies had drifted to the other side of the parking lot, kicking a discarded beer can with a little more vehemence than the couple walking back to their car with their pumpkin treasures and their wide staring eyes seemed to care for — and his boys loped back across to him, Gripps tossing the empty can unerringly into the open window of the other parked car. 

“Any kind we’re lookin’ for in particular, Drummer?” said Martin, and Amanda shrugged, wrinkling her nose at the upkick of dust from busy Rowdy feet. 

“I’m not sure,” she said. “Maybe there’s a clue I’m missing.” 

Martin tapped out a cigarette and lit it while Amanda shuffled her feet, frowning at the field. Beastie and the other three Rowdies ventured into the field, heading in the opposite direction from the remaining normal people poking through the patch. 

Cross leap-frogged over some of the bigger pumpkins, and when he landed in a crouch, Vogel leap-frogged over him, sailing through the air with a cackle as Cross toppled into a backwards somersault. Gripps tossed a head-sized pumpkin into the air, and Cross kicked his legs up to send the pumpkin catapulting over to smack into Vogel’s backside. He yelped, leaping into the air, and in minutes there were pumpkins flying everywhere. 

Martin leaned against the wooden fence and smoked, lips curling up a bit at Amanda’s full-blown smile as she hopped up onto the fence, her hand on his shoulder as she straightened to stand, teetering above him, the wind blowing her messy ponytail over her shoulder. 

He wouldn’t let her fall. 

“This what y’saw?” he said, holding his cigarette away from her as she flailed for a moment, rocking back onto her toes as she settled there on the wooden beam. Her fingers were cold, right through the layers of his vest and shirt. 

He looked up, and when she looked back, for just a moment, her eyes didn’t look right. 

Not like hers. 

Like something from a dream, maybe. 

“We’re supposed to be here,” she said, and her dark eyes were hers again, warm and sparkling with mischief. “Just— not yet. If that makes sense?” He shrugged one shoulder, and she grinned. “Plenty of time to toss some jack o’ lanterns, right?” 

Martin tilted his head. 

He hadn’t carved jack o’ lanterns in— 

...years— 

_—sharp paring knife shaving into firm orange flesh, sinking past rind and scraping over pale skin—_

Martin shook his head and breathed out a lungful of smoke. 

“Think we could get a few of ‘em lit up without candles?” Amanda was saying, and he glanced up at her. 

Blew out some more smoke. “Candles ‘re in one of th’ crates,” he said, and her face brightened. “Gripps knows where.” 

Amanda let out a whoop and jumped down from the fence, darting out into the field and narrowly missing tripping over several of the pumpkins, heading for Gripps and shouting for Vogel to get some “good round ones.” 

Martin’s shoulder felt colder without her hand there. 

—

The field — the far end of it, where the little path from the parking lot led, away from the mess of pumpkin guts that remained from the toss n’ smash game they’d held, beyond the unscathed pumpkins they’d left unsquashed — was a fine enough place to camp for the night. Cross had scouted ahead, waving Martin forward as he coaxed the Oh No Mobile over the uneven dirt and patches of grass until they were out of sight of the then-empty parking lot, and cranking the shift into _park_ with a satisfying _clunk_ as the engine cooled eased the tightness in Martin’s chest that he’d apparently been ignoring. 

That, or the easy, loose movements of Amanda skipping around the fire pit Vogel had started, her hands full of stringy pumpkin guts and seeds, mouth wide and laughing as Vogel shrieked at her for the wad of it she’d dumped in his hair. 

No tugging of the universe tonight, anyway, just him and his Rowdies, all together and safe. 

Cross had dragged out the seats, set up around the campfire Vogel was enthusiastically fanning higher, and Martin dropped into his preferred seat and tipped his head back, looking up at the stars glittering as the dusk gave way to night. 

He was so _tired._

“That’s no way for you to sleep.” 

Martin jolted, eyes snapping open, unaware that he’d dozed off. 

Only— 

The fire had died down, and it was truly dark out, and only the light of the gibbous moon cast any light on the figure seated next to him on the bench. 

“You’re sure to get a crick in your neck, sleeping like that,” said Oz, and it could almost be _concern_ on his face, if Oz had a single empathetic bone in his body. His hand slid around the back of Martin’s neck, squeezing on the muscles there until Martin tilted his head back to ease the pressure. 

Oz’s other hand circled around his throat, pressing down, and Martin choked. 

“There you are,” said Oz, smiling easily as he lowered his hands, patting Martin’s shoulder in a friendly manner, like there weren’t faint bruises on Martin’s skin already where his hands had squeezed just the other day. 

Martin kept his hands in his lap, didn’t move to touch the sore bruises, because doing so would just remind Oz that they were there. 

Wasn’t worth it. 

“So nice of you to wait for me,” purred Oz, and picked up Martin’s backpack, casually unzipping it and rifling through the contents. “Lots of homework, hmm?” 

Martin nodded. Didn’t look at him. 

If he kept his breathing steady enough, maybe it would help keep his hands from trembling. 

“Let’s take the scenic route home,” suggested Oz, dropping Martin’s backpack onto his lap and shouldering his own, standing. Martin gathered up his bag, making sure it was zipped closed securely before shouldering it. 

The scenic route meant through the park. 

Which meant by the lake. 

Martin shivered, hiding his trepidation with a hesitant smile for Oz as he stood, lowering his gaze again fast, just in case. 

“That’s right,” said Oz, close to his ear, slinging an arm around his shoulders like all was well in the world, like they were _friendly._ “I think it’s been long enough since we were there, don’t you? It’ll be nice to get some fresh air together.” 

They went out the front of the school, headed for the street— 

_—no, that wasn’t right… Oz liked going out the rear entrance, it was a quicker shot to the path through the woods—_

—they went out the back, same as always, with Oz cheerily waving goodbye to their peers and Martin keeping his head down. 

Maybe this time would be different. 

Maybe Oz would just walk them by the lake to remind Martin of the promises it kept, maybe he wouldn’t do anything— 

—maybe it would be okay this time— 

“Doesn’t the water look great?” said Oz, and frowned, his brows lowering. “Martin?” 

“Sure,” said Martin quickly. “It’s— nice.” 

Oz’s face smoothed, lightning quick. “Why don’t we go take a closer look?” His fingers dug into Martin’s shoulder. “Let’s go check out the pier.” 

The pier, which was devoid of anyone but a hopeful seagull that thankfully took off as soon as Oz’s boots stomped down on the first plank of wood, and Martin gingerly stepped after him. 

“Let’s leave our stuff here,” said Oz, dropping his bag by one of the posts, and Martin reluctantly slid his bag down his arm so it was set by Oz’s. 

No bag meant there was likely a lot of water in his future, because getting his bag soaked would take too long to dry out all the books and things, and Oz had only done that once before he realised how much of a hassle it was. 

There was a bit of wind cutting across the lake, and Martin shivered, wishing he’d thought to bring a hoodie from home — his long-sleeved shirt just wasn’t thick enough to keep him warm. 

He didn’t dare ask Oz to borrow his. 

Oz was pulling out his phone, anyway, tapping at something, and he grinned at Martin. “C’mere,” he said. “The light’s good. I’ve got a photo assignment, and you’re the _perfect_ subject. Can you back up a bit? And turn around.” 

Turning around meant his back was to the end of the pier. 

Martin turned, and Oz was smiling at him over his phone, guileless. 

“Another few steps, I want the light to be perfect.” 

Martin took another few steps. 

One, two. Three. A fourth, shakily. 

The pier wasn’t all that long. 

“Almost there,” crooned Oz in that singsong tone of his, “just like two more steps, yeah?” 

Martin took another step back. 

Felt the edge of the wood under the sole of his shoe. 

“One more step, Martin,” said Oz, and he was still smiling, but there was a hint of steel in his gaze, brooking no argument. 

Martin hesitated. 

It was cold, and he didn’t want to— 

“Martin,” said Oz, and his name was nothing more than a _threat_ on Oz’s tongue. 

Martin took another step back, and met nothing but open air, and his arms windmilled as he tried to catch his balance, but it didn’t matter. 

He fell backward and hit the water with a wet _slap,_ his glasses wrenched from his face as the water closed over his face. 

He’d hoped it wasn’t too deep, but when he flailed around and tried to find the bottom, he _couldn’t,_ and it was just too _deep—_

—he didn’t know how to _swim—_

His lungs were burning. 

He was so _cold—_

No one came to pull him out. 

He was going to drown— 

_—he was going to drown—_

—”-idiot brother,” Oz was saying when he dragged Martin up to the surface, crouching on the end of the pier and smiling, his grip like iron on Martin’s arm. Someone else was — more than one someone else? — standing behind him, and another pair of hands helped pull him back up out of the water. 

Martin wheezed, breathing in too fast and inhaling water that hadn’t drained from his nose and mouth, coughing hard to clear his lungs, and Oz draped his hoodie over Martin’s shoulders, the perfect gentleman. 

“Let’s get you home,” he said, ever so gently, handing Martin his glasses. “You’ll catch cold, all wet like that. You should be more careful to watch where you’re walking. Here, I’ll carry your bag so it doesn’t get wet.” 

Martin’s legs were trembling so bad that he could barely walk in a straight line, and once they were out of sight of the park, Oz took his hoodie back. He dropped Martin’s bag in the dirt of the path, too, and Martin wordlessly picked it up and trudged after him, clothes soaked and shoes squishing with every step, and hoped he might get at least a hot shower when they got home— 

_—he hadn’t, Oz had just made him towel off and change, and he’d been so cold for the rest of the night he’d barely slept—_

_—sleeping he’d been asleep he was dreaming this was a—_

“—dream,” said Amanda, and her face was right above his, her eyes wide and bright in the light of the fire. “It’s just a dream, Martin, you’re alright.” 

She offered her hand, and when he took it her skin was burning hot — she hauled him up off the ground easily, pushing gently at him until he sat back down in the seat he didn’t remember falling out of. There was dirt in his beard when he rubbed the side of his face, and behind Amanda he could see the boys roasting marshmallows, glancing over at him with thinly veiled concern. They looked away when they felt him watching. 

He’d been… dreaming? 

It had felt so real, Oz’s hand, the lake water, the cold. 

Martin shivered. 

“Want a cuddle?” offered Amanda, holding up the big woven blanket Gripps had found for her at one of the thrift shops they’d barrelled through a few months back looking for new clothes when one of Amanda’s favourite pairs of jeans had gotten a long tear in it. 

“Yeah,” he said, his voice gruffer than he’d intended, but Amanda just smiled reassuringly and climbed onto his lap, wrapping the blanket around them both, her head settling on his shoulder. The phantom sting of Oz’s nails biting into the skin there surfaced, for just a moment, and then Martin took an unsteady breath and it was gone. 

Just a dream. 

It had been just a dream… 

—

It was pitch dark around her when Amanda woke up shaking later that night, the dim light from the embers of their campfire just enough to let her make out the sprawled shapes of her sleeping Rowdies spread out in the grass and dirt. The night air was cool, and for a moment she imagined ice nipping at the tips of her fingers— 

But it wasn’t _that_ cold, and it didn’t feel like an attack. 

Amanda frowned up at the stars, then rolled over, flailing out an arm to reach for Martin — he was always in touching distance when she woke up, if she hadn’t fallen asleep right next to him. She’d woken up startled in a new place enough times, looking for something familiar to ground herself, and somehow Martin had turned into that grounding presence. 

She didn’t have to reach far. Martin was laid out right next to her, and _he_ was the one shaking like a leaf and making her teeth chatter. He was closer than he usually slept to any of them — just putting her elbow down had her forearm right to his chest — and he was muttering in his sleep, not the snores she was used to. 

“Martin?” she whispered. “Martin, you’re dreaming.” She poked him in the shoulder, smoothing a hand over the striped patch on his vest before pulling her arm back to herself so she could roll over properly and sit up. _“Martin.”_

Martin jerked away from her, jolting awake and looking up at her, starlight glinting on the lenses of his glasses, and the pure _terror_ in his eyes froze her in place. 

“Martin?” she whispered again, and he shuddered, curling in on himself, arm up as if to protect his head from attack. “Martin, what’s wrong?” He didn’t answer, and she scooted a little closer, not touching. 

She didn’t know what to do.

“Hey, you’re okay,” she tried softly, not wanting to startle him any more than he already was. “You’re safe. You were asleep. It was a bad dream, but you’re safe now, okay?” 

She looked over at where the others were sleeping, and they weren’t asleep anymore, not even Beast, each of them sitting up and looking around in confusion, reaching for bats and crowbars and bricks like there might be a threat. 

Amanda wished it was one she could fight, with her fists or her witchikookoo powers, or _something._ She looked back down at Martin’s tensely balled position and chewed at her lip. “We’re in an empty field near the pumpkin farm from yesterday. It’s just us and the boys and Beastie here.” 

She wanted to hold him tightly until it was all okay again, but she knew he needed distance right now, didn’t know if he’d _want_ to be held. So she just laid down again next to him, keeping the space between them open, keeping her voice soft. 

“The van is right over there, a few feet away, and we’re all safe and okay. I won’t let anything hurt you,” she murmured. “You’re safe. You’re _safe,_ Martin, it’s okay.” 

A low, unhappy noise escaped him, but his shoulders lowered a bit, losing some of the tension trapped there, and when he looked at her again she could _see_ him seeing her, lucid and _there,_ eyes wet. “Manda…?” 

“You were dreaming,” she said, keeping her voice soft. “Just dreaming.” She held out her hand, just an offer, and his fingers twined with hers, and he curled forward with a groan, his forehead resting on her collarbone. “It was just a dream.” 

She hesitated. “Can I…?” 

Amanda gently set her hand on his shoulders, half questioningly, and after only a moment he leaned closer to her, enough for her to rest her hand on his back and lean her head against his. Not too tight, not caging him in, just… holding him. His hand in hers was warm and rough, and she cradled it close to her, wishing she could keep him, keep _all_ of them, safe. 

She stayed right there, feeling his steady heartbeat under her hands, felt just the slightest hitch in his breath when he inhaled deep, even as the light began to creep in soft pastel tones up with the dawn. 

“Boss?” said Vogel, his voice very small, and she looked up to see the other Rowdies had crept closer, all bunched together shoulder to shoulder and wearing near identical worried expressions, barely four feet away. Even Beast was up, rubbing her eyes sleepily and more confused than not. 

Martin was still, too still to be asleep, but his breathing was steady. Alive. 

“They’re real worried,” said Amanda softly, smoothing her hand down Martin’s back. “We all are.” 

Martin huffed a soft sigh into her shoulder and lifted his head, his glasses askew and his spiky hair curled down and sideways from being pressed against her hoodie. Her fingers itched to straighten it, but she didn’t dare. Not yet. 

Martin gave her a little nod and then the boys and Beastie were around him, laying down with enough distance to keep him from feeling crowded, but close enough that he knew they were there. The tension was leaving his body, and he put his head back down on Amanda’s chest, nestling in. 

“That’s the second one this evening,” she said softly. 

Martin just grunted. 

“You know you can talk to me about anything, right? Can talk to any of us,” she insisted, running a slow hand through his hair. 

He grunted again and nodded, leaning into her. 

“Jus’ a nightmare, nothin’ t’worry bout,” he mumbled against her skin. She dropped the subject and let it go, knowing they wouldn’t get anywhere if she kept pushing. 

“Try to get some more sleep. We’ll all be here,” she assured him, rubbing a hand over his back, and he sighed, turning his head a bit so his glasses weren’t being pushed into both his face and her shoulder, and settled. 

His breaths evened out, slowing, as did the Rowdies around them, and at some point Cross rolled over and flung an arm over Amanda’s side, his snoring loud in her ear, but it wasn’t the snoring keeping her awake, or Gripps counting in a mumbling undertone in his sleep making her eyes snap open every time they slipped shut. 

Amanda didn’t need a big sign from the universe or a hecking vision to know something was _definitely_ out of sorts with Martin. 

Whatever it was, she _would_ find a way to help him. 

No matter what. 

—

Martin yawned — if he breathed in deep enough, he could taste the heady scent of wet fallen leaves under the crackle of Amanda’s energy, prickling and sharp on his tongue. The longer they went without solving anything more from her vision, the more agitated that energy became, not quite tipping her over into an attack but _close,_ close enough that all of them found themselves lingering close in her orbit, just in case. 

She’d kick all their asses if she thought they were _hovering,_ and they knew it, and _she_ knew it, so they didn’t, but that didn’t mean each and every one of the Rowdy 3 weren’t highly _aware_ of their boss at any given time. 

...just in case. 

Amanda, at that moment, was barrelling across the wide lawn of the farmhouse, chasing one of the chickens that was wandering around loose, cackling madly with Cross close on her heels. 

Martin watched them for a moment longer, yawned again, scratching the back of his neck and wondering if he could wait another day or two before asking Gripps to dig out the clippers again. 

_“Martin!”_ yelled Amanda, and his head whipped around, fingers curling into fists, but she was just glaring at him from across the field, hands on hips — Cross had run past her when she stopped, and the chicken evaded his grasp when he lunged for it. 

“We ready to go???” She asked, frowning curiously at him.

The market was that morning, and the rowdies had all risen early at the promise of cider and donuts and adventures. They were now running around causing chaos he realized, and he was just standing there partially zoned out. Right. 

“Good t’go,” he nodded. “Boys!” He whistled and they all stopped what they were doing and piled into the van for the short journey down the road to the flea market. 

Not too many other cars were parked there, so Martin didn’t bother to align the van in any sort of parking spot, just angled it mostly out of the way with a screech of brakes. The excitement building was palpable as they all clambered out into the sun. Amanda’s boots crunching on leaves, bright and orange. 

They didn’t set off an attack, though, so she just took a deep breath and grinned, leading the pack towards the open white tents set up beside the little shack of a store. The tables were loaded with vegetables and fruits and, by the smell of it, freshly baked goods, and people chatting amiably as they wandered to peruse the wares. 

“Best behaviour, boys,” she called, and Vogel sheepishly dropped the crab apples he’d been gathering in his arms, likely to use as missiles to toss at Cross or Gripps. These were nice people, a nice place — it didn’t feel like the universe wanted them to change it drastically like it usually let them. 

Amanda took a deep breath, and— 

_Apples._

Warm, spiced, but definitely apples, and _definitely_ what she remembered from her vision. 

Amanda followed her nose to a few tables down, ducking around a man carrying a pumpkin wider than she was, and there she saw the cups and the great big pot and sign reading _Hot Spiced Cider!_ with little apples drawn around the words. 

“Hey, Martin,” she said, and he passed her his wallet without a word. 

A warm cup of cider and a box full of cider donuts in hand, Amanda was content to lazily wander the stalls hand in hand with Martin. She had lost track of where the others had gone off to, but she didn’t hear any screaming and she trusted they would find their way back when it was time. 

They walked by stalls selling vegetables and fruits, jams and jellies, and homemade candles. She liked the way the cool breeze felt when it brushed her cheeks and lifted her hair, sending her a half step closer into Martin’s side — and if the lazy smile on his face was anything to go by, he didn’t much mind either. 

As they walked, he stole little sips of her cider, and they bumped shoulders and laughed as they spotted a flash of rainbow hair disappearing around a corner. There was no following crash, so they figured it was fine. They weren’t worried. The Rowdies could handle themselves. 

When the gang was all back together, somehow meeting up at the same time beneath the same tree without any prior communication — as was usual with the Rowdies — they all produced their finds to share with the group. There was Martin and Amanda’s box of cider donuts, Vogel’s armful of mini decorative gourds, Cross’s meat pie and Gripps’ apple pie, and a handful of crunchy leaves Beastie had been storing in her shirt. All in all, a very good haul. But it was still missing something. Amanda pouted as she thought it over. 

“Hey Martin? Could you run into the shop to get some cider we can take with us?” 

He grunted with a small nod and was off across the lot without a moment's delay. 

—

It wasn’t much warmer inside than out on the lawn, but the store smelled _good,_ all those warm fall smells of baked goods and cooking things that Martin was beginning to appreciate just a little — they didn’t really interest him, but Amanda always got excited by them, and _that_ was enough to warm him up better than any hot mug of chicken soup. 

He yawned again, and forlornly eyed the large coffee dispensers lined up on one of the display tables. It smelled good, but the caffeine didn’t do shit for him. 

“Can I help you find something?” offered the teen lurking by the bags and bags of apples, wearing a cream coloured apron with a big logo of a chicken on the front that looked suspiciously like the one Amanda and Cross had been chasing this morning. 

“Cider,” said Martin. 

“Alcoholic or nah?” 

Martin raised his eyebrows. “Both?” If Amanda didn’t want the alcoholic ones, he and the boys would likely be able to down them without a problem. Then again, she wasn’t one to turn down a drink, unless it was licorice flavoured. 

“Over here,” said the teen, leading Martin over to one of the walls of shelves. There was a refrigerator humming gently beside the shelves of bottles. “All of them are made on site. If you have any questions, let me know.” 

“Thanks,” said Martin, half remembering his manners when the kid lingered for a moment, and the teen wandered off, leaving him to peruse the offerings of the shop. None of the flavoured ciders made any sense to him — it was apples, wasn’t it, so why make it weird — and he _almost_ grabbed one of the anise apple ciders, just to see the look on Amanda’s face when he handed it to her, but decided against it. There were six-pack cartons stacked on the floor, and he used one to shove six bottles of cider into before snagging a plastic jug of it from the refrigerator. 

Hopefully that would be enough variety for his Drummer girl, at least until they found another place selling the stuff, which he quite expected they would soon enough. Martin set his choices on the counter to be rung up, and something to the side of the register caught his eye. 

“Those honey sticks?” 

The teen, who seemed to be the only employee in the shop, craned their neck to look around the machine. “Yeah, flavors listed on the stand” said the teen. “25 cents a stick, 5 for a dollar. Want to grab some? I can ring it in for you.” 

Martin considered the display for a moment, then nodded. He hadn’t had a honey stick since he was a very little kid, and Vogel would definitely like them. 

Goodies in hand, Martin retreated from the shop and the steady stare of the teen, rolling his shoulders the moment he was outside again. Cross and Amanda were chasing each other around the field behind the lot, and Vogel had climbed on top of the van, digging for something while Gripps called directions for him from the ground, Beast’s legs dangling out of the back doors, gently kicking in the air. 

“...and it’s not that far from here. It’s worth stopping by, at least, right?” 

Martin tilted his head, peering over his glasses at a huddled group of young people, most of them wearing matching sweatshirts that had some sort of word written in bold type across the front, the letters too squashed together for him to make out at that distance. 

“But it’s _haunted,”_ said one of the others, her tone complaining. “Like, _real_ haunted, not just haunted house stuff. Some _kid_ got murdered there. Like, for _real_ murdered, and they say he still haunts the place.” 

“That’s stupid, Kelly,” said one of the boys, and another one elbowed him in the ribs. “What? I’m right, aren’t I? Ghosts aren’t _real.”_

“Look, it won’t take us very far out of the way,” said the first one. “We can eat dinner and go right after, on the way to the fairgrounds. If it’s too _scary_ for you—” 

“I’m not _scared—”_

“Then you won’t mind going, would you?” she said sweetly, and the boy grumbled under his breath. “Check your map, would you, Kelly? It’s right up the road, isn’t it?” 

“From Boiler’s? Yeah.” The crinkle of paper was loud as she unfolded the map and scrunched one side of it in her hand so she could point out something with the others. “It’s, like, just one left after there, and the road even takes us right back out to the main road. Easy peasy. But do we _have_ to—” 

Martin turned away, heading back to the van, setting his purchases inside next to Beast — she reached over to hug the jug of cider to her chest, muttering something about the chill. 

“So, what’d you get?” Amanda was breathless, skidding in the dirt to stop next to him, cheeks reddened by the cold and exertion, her hair starting to escape the already messy ponytail she’d tugged it into. “Dude, what kind of cider _is_ this?” She didn’t wait for an answer, just cracked one of the bottles open to take a sip. _“Whoa,_ that’s strong. Want a taste?” 

The bottle was shoved up almost to his nose, and Martin closed his hand gently around hers so he could take a sip, the cider sweet and strong on his tongue. Not too strong, really, just potent. “May’ve found a lead on y’r house,” he said, and Amanda’s gaze sharpened, a wide grin spreading on her face. 

“Then what are we waiting for?” 

—

It started raining about halfway into their drive, a few drips the only warning before the whole sky opened up. The boys howled along with the beating of rain against the roof as they drove. And Martin’s overheard directions were good — it wasn’t hard to find the giant sign for Boiler’s, even through the squall, and just past it was the road they were looking for. 

The windshield wipers of the Oh No Mobile stopped working just about when the van itself slid around the last slick corner and skidded onto the lawn of the house, sitting still in the dark as the Rowdies howled with laughter and Beastie shrieked at the sudden stop.

It took Amanda’s breath away. They all watched her for a moment as her face split into a grin. “This is it.” The house was exactly like the one she had seen nearly a week ago, finally taking a fully coherent shape in her mind. 

The windows were boarded up, the door hanging slightly off its hinges, and that damn front step was exactly like she had pictured, loose boards cracked and coming apart. 

“Ready?” She turned to Martin and held out her hand. He smiled a slow and easy smile, taking it like there was nothing else in the world as easy as this. 

“Lead the way, Drummer,” he drawled. 

She grinned wildly. “Okay! Careful where you step,” she advised loudly as they all spilled out into the rain, boots splashing in the mud and soggy grass. She could easily imagine one of them jumping and putting their foot straight through one of those soggy old boards. They clomped up onto the creaky wooden porch of the house, out of the downpour but still misted by the wind tossing rain at them under the overhang. 

“Anybody home?” she yelled, and a crack of thunder drowned her out. 

Cross was looking at them, bouncing on his heels with a wild grin that matched Amanda’s, and Martin jerked his chin at the door. With a whoop, Cross crashed through it like it was nothing more than wallpaper, wood splintering easily, and they all followed him into the mostly dry house, running off immediately to explore their new find.

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s lived here in a long time,” said Amanda, trailing a finger over the railing of the stairs just off the foyer — it came away dark with dust, grimy. She smiled up at Martin, teeth white in the flash of lightning from the shattered door. “Think we could stay here tonight, yeah? Or til the rain stops, anyway.” 

There was a crash from further inside the house and a yell — They both froze, staring at each other. 

“Ghost or the boys?” Amanda asked in a low whisper. The faint sound of crazed laughter trailed up from somewhere below them. 

Martin heaved a sigh. “Boys,” he said, the tension draining from him as quickly as it had come.

Amanda snorted. “Boys?” she called out. “Everybody okay?” 

She was met by a variety of affirmatives and shouts. 

“Vogel did a little tumble! He’s alright!” came Gripps’ answering shout, the only one with any useful detail. Quickly followed by Vogel’s own excited, “Boss! I went through the _floor!”_

Amanda sighed and looked up to Martin, who also had a fond smile on his face. 

“Expected nothin’ less from them.” 

She grinned and held out her hand again. “You coming? We aren’t gonna find those ghosts just standing here!” 

Martin laced his fingers with hers, tentative, careful. For all she was the boss and a kickass punk, she was still small. Breakable. 

_—it wouldn’t take much, just one little push, a hand too firm—_

Martin shook his head, keeping his grip on her hand as gentle as if he was holding something precious — and he was, wasn’t she? 

She was precious to him, anyway. 

“Let’s check in here,” said Amanda, with no such qualms about hanging onto his hand, dragging him further into the house, into one of the side rooms beyond the staircase. Martin sneezed — their boots were kicking up more dust with every step. “This was a dining room. A whole family sat here and ate bountiful Thanksgiving feasts. Probably had food fights, too.” 

Martin sneezed again. “If y’ say so.” The table was huge, too big for… the kind of family he’d grown up in. Big enough for all the Rowdies, if they were ever to sit down for a meal, but that just wasn’t likely. 

Amanda leaned her hip against the wood, and grinned. “Wanna flip it?” 

It looked heavy. Heavier than her, probably. He shrugged, and when she let go of his hand it felt empty. 

“C’mon, _help_ me,” she said, kicking at his boot with her own, and he sidestepped her attack to rest his hands on the wood — smooth, under all that dust and stuff that he probably didn’t want to think about them both sticking their fingers in — and waited for her to strain at the table for one long, amusing moment as it didn’t shift an inch. 

This time when she kicked at him, her boot hit his ankle. 

Martin huffed a laugh. “Alrigh’, Drummer, c’mon. Together.” 

Amanda flipped him the bird, but she was grinning as he bent his knees to heave on the table with her, getting his shoulder against the underside and shoving it with that better leverage. And when the heavy thing tipped over, it teetered on edge for just a moment before a kick from Amanda’s clunky boot sent it crashing to the floor, legs up like an unfortunate sheep. 

Cross whooped as he ran by the doorway to the room, something crackling suspiciously like a firecracker in his hands, and Amanda stepped onto the upturned table, turning to Martin. 

Lightning flashed, lighting up the room, and her, and for a split second, she looked unreal. Ethereal. Like if he reached out to touch her, his hand would pass right through her, nothing more than a ghost. 

Amanda kicked one of the table legs and brushed past him on her way through the door, solid and real. “C’mon, they’re gonna hog all the fun.” 

Martin followed her.

—

Even without the music from the van’s radio, the heavy bass lines thrumming through his skin, it didn’t feel _quiet_ to Martin. Never. Not when his boys were shouting and hollering amidst the crashes and bangs of things being smashed — he heard a window shatter, _felt_ the low _whoosh_ of rain-cooled air rushing into the house — and that steady pulse in his veins was all them, all his Rowdies. 

The cracks of splintering wood would _never_ be the same as shattering bones, and _that_ was some small comfort in the flickering lightning and the growing orange blaze of the fire. Gripps had found the fireplace in the living room was in working order, once he thumped on the flue enough to get it open, and there’d been plenty of old furniture that didn’t smell moldy or nothing for him to build a good fire-starting pile. 

Amanda, Beast, and Vogel collected dusty pillows and blankets from around the rooms, beating them out as best they could— much to their amusement — and Martin surveyed them all, lingering out of the paths of trampling feet and windmilling arms and crowbars and bats, making sure no one got hurt, and nothing could sneak up on them, blowing smoke from his cigarette toward the smashed window. 

A roll of thunder hit just in time with Vogel’s first smack at a dusty blanket Amanda was holding up for him, and his shrieks of delight at the clouds of dust that wafted up were peppered with Amanda sneezing and giggling. 

Martin closed his eyes for a moment, tipping his head back to rest against the wall, the cool night air caressing his bared throat. Tobacco and fireplace smoke, woodsy and warm, settled into his lungs, and his head came forward in an explosive sneeze when the dust settled there, too. 

“Sorry!” called Amanda, not sounding sorry at all, and swung one of the blankets up in a rippling arc to drop it over Vogel’s head. He yelled, only his arms and legs sticking out, and promptly ran into Cross, who cackled as they both toppled to the floor to wrestle. Something crashed, elsewhere in the house, and it took Martin a moment to count heads and realise, as Beastie tumbled away from Gripps with a stolen piece of busted chair leg from his pile, that all of them were accounted for. 

Unease trickled down his spine, and Martin flicked the ash from his cigarette out the window, taking one last drag before flicking the spent butt after the ash and skirting around the pile on the wriggling floor — Vogel had gotten his head out from under the blanket enough to aim better, and was tickling Cross mercilessly while Amanda was wheezing with laughter against the wall — and made for the stairs. 

The air was cooler but _drier_ deeper in the house, away from the busted window and the crackling fireplace — for a moment Martin’s mouth felt sticky with marshmallows, only half toasted in haste, then he swallowed and it was gone — and the steps creaked ominously under his boots with each step, reminding him that it was up to _their_ fickle sturdiness whether they wouldn’t break under his weight. 

There was more dust upstairs than he’d seen downstairs, and less dirt, too, from Rowdy boots, and each door he came to was closed. 

Except— 

There was one door, at the end of the hall, open just a crack. Martin reached out, tapping one finger against it for a gentle push, and it slid open, hinges squeaking— 

_—the door to their room falling open, silently as ever, hinges slick with fresh oil. Never enough warning for Martin, not unless the lights were off in the room and they were on in the hall, and of course that was an easy thing to fix should cold hands flick off the switch—_

Martin drew in a sharp breath, taking an unconscious step back, but there was no one in the room, just sheet-covered furniture coated in dust and spider webs, not even a footprint there. A little bed, for a child, what looked like an easy chair in one corner by an uncovered desk with a lamp, a single bureau with scratched, dark wood, the sheet having long since slipped down, and he could see the pale outline of his own face in the mirror. 

No, not _his_ face— 

Martin stepped closer, yanking the sheet aside in a puff of dust, and it slid from his fingers like so much satin, dust smeared to reflect the darkness left behind. Part of the mirror was still obscured, too dirty and smudged to show much, and it was perfectly placed to freeze him to the spot, eyes that weren’t his own looking back at him. 

_—it wasn’t hard to hate his own face, when the one so familiar to him stared back from across the room, the smile never as charming or sincere as intended, and Martin wished he could smash every mirror in the house and hide himself away in the dark, just so he wouldn’t have to look—_

Something shattered, and pain sparked across Martin’s knuckles. He blinked, looking down, and there was blood on the mirror, cracks radiating out from the impact point of where his fist had smashed into it. 

He wasn’t sure if he was breathing, or if the roaring in his ears was the rain on the roof or the pounding of his heart, and by the time it faded enough for him to register other noises, he could already hear loud footsteps tromping up the stairs toward him. 

Martin turned, and there was Cross, standing in the doorway, backlit by the firelight that had dimly followed him up there. 

“Okay, boss?” 

Martin looked down at his hand, up at the shattered mirror, and then over to Cross’s worried expression. “Y-yeah,” he mumbled, trying to keep the shakiness from his voice. “M’ okay. Thought I heard somethin’ up here.” He shook his head and stepped back, away from the mirror and his own haunted face, and Cross stepped back to let him through the doorway, the taller Rowdy’s hand brushing past his shoulder. 

He couldn’t look at him, just down at his hand as he flexed it, feeling the torn skin stretch, and Cross didn’t say a word, just headed down the stairs, and Martin followed him. 

“Let Gripps wrap that,” Cross instructed softly as they reached the bottom of the stairs, as if the red blood oozing down Martin’s fingers wasn’t any big bother at all — Martin huffed, but didn’t disagree. 

Half an hour later, his hand wrapped lightly in gauze and Amanda sprawled next to him with her legs draped over his lap, warm from the fire and her proximity, Martin could put the cold touch of the mirror out of his mind. 

Somewhere, elsewhere in the house, something fell over, a soft thud and a roll of small noises across the wooden floor. 

Martin ignored it, and threw another marshmallow at Cross, grinning when it bounced off his nose and Vogel snagged it. 

The rain still poured down, the thunder gone, and for all there were walls around them, for once it didn’t feel like he was trapped. 

—

“Where _arrrre_ you, Martin?” called Oz, his voice soft, teasing. Just a simple game of hide ‘n seek. Sort of. “C’mon, Marty, c’mon out ‘n play. Don’t ya want to come play with me?” 

Martin opened his mouth to respond, and closed it again quick with a soft click of teeth. He couldn’t. He _shouldn’t_ say anything, because then Oz would find him. There was something important about not being found, about _what_ needed to not be found, and it all started with Martin. 

He couldn’t let Oz find him. 

He was under the bed, it was safe there, because Oz had shoved all sorts of boxes and things under there ages ago and never bothered to look. Martin had cleared out a little space, just enough to curl himself up in, knees hugged tight to his chest, and if he breathed real slow and thin maybe Oz wouldn’t hear him. Wouldn’t find him. 

At least, not right away. Oz _would_ find him, eventually. He always did. 

He turned his head, just a little, trying to find a good position to breathe that wouldn’t choke him on dust, and something glinted, on the floor. 

Martin’s breath caught in his chest, and his hand started to ache anew. 

Shattered glass from the mirror he’d broken littered the floor, glittering cold and gleaming, mocking him, a sure sign to lead Oz into the room— 

_—that wasn’t right, that wasn’t_ right, _they didn’t have a mirror in their room, the bureau was bare on top, there hadn’t been a mirror to break—_

—Martin swallowed around the tickling sensation in the back of his throat, mouth dry. There was a plush toy staring at him with unseeing button eyes, a patchwork elephant plush that had been held and squeezed enough to press the stuffing out of shape in places, careful stitching down the length of its elegant trunk. 

It wasn’t familiar. It wasn’t _his,_ and Oz had outgrown that kind of toy years ago, but—

He coughed, dust reaching up with cloying fingers to slip into his nose and mouth, and then a real hand, warm and nails biting, dug into the back of his neck and dragged him out from under the bed. 

_“There_ you are,” cooed Oz, the warmth of his smile almost feverish. 

Or maybe _Martin_ was the one with the fever, the tickle in his throat making him cough again, and when he tried to take a deeper breath to clear his lungs, Oz’s hand tightened around his throat. 

He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe— 

Martin tried not to struggle, tried not to, because struggling would mean it would hurt worse, would last longer, but he couldn’t _breathe,_ and he tried to pull away, pushing at Oz with his bad hand, blood smearing bright and dazzlingly red on the white of Oz’s shirt—

—

Martin jolted awake, injured hand throbbing. Morning light was filtering in through the windows, and the fire had gone out, not even coals smouldering in the ashes left. 

“...artin?” 

He stirred, his entire body shaking with some swiftly fading chill, and turned his head. Amanda was kneeling next to him, her hands on his shoulders, and he could taste the sour candy flavour of her worry. “‘Manda.” 

“You wouldn’t wake up,” she said. Her voice was calm, but her hands on him were trembling, and he reached up to cover them with his own. 

“‘m awake now.” He pushed himself up, and she leaned back to make space for him. 

“The rain stopped,” she said when he said nothing more, a little unnecessarily as he pushed his glasses up enough to rub at his eyes. “I was hoping to have a look at the house with the light, before we left.” 

Martin wasn’t opposed to it. Honestly, he was hoping the light of day might scare off whatever shadows might have lingered during the night. “You eaten?” he said, and Amanda blinked at him. “Breakfast.” 

“On it, Boss!” called Cross from somewhere else in the house, his voice followed almost immediately by a crash and a shout of _“Vo_ gel!” with answering giggles from the younger Rowdy.

“Rowdy boys,” said Amanda fondly, lacing her fingers with Martin’s for a moment, squeezing gently. At least she’d stopped shaking. “C’mon, let's go see what Cross found for us.” 

Confetti-coloured pop tarts, is what he’d found, presented in their silvery packaging with a flourish and a grin, and Amanda munched through the sickeningly sweet-smelling food as she dragged Martin through the house by the hand, knocking things over with her boots when she felt like it since her hands were both occupied, kicking through the mess they’d made the night before—

_—supposed strawberry flavoured sugary sweetness on his tongue, licking his fingers to get the stickiness gone and checking frantically that he hadn’t left any crumbs, stomach grumbling for something more—_

Martin nearly tripped at the foot of the stairs, catching himself on the banister, and his hand _ached_ at having his weight thrown on it. 

“Whoa, you okay?” said Amanda. The pop tart packaging was gone, she must’ve dropped it somewhere or stuffed it in her pocket, but there were still crumbs on the lapel of her jacket, at the corner of her mouth. Gripps zoomed past them, Beastie on his shoulders and her rainbow hair streaming behind them. “You awake yet, Mr Two Left Feet?” 

Martin tugged on her hand, and she yelped, stumbling off the stair, and he spun her into his arms, smooth as silk. “Who’re you callin’ names, there, Drummer?” 

“Ooo, you wanna dance, punk?” 

Martin dropped a kiss on the top of her head and spun her out on his arm. “You’ve got somethin,” he said, gesturing to his own mouth, and grinning when red blazed across her cheeks and nose as she scrubbed her sleeve over her lips. 

“Jerk,” she said, and led him up the stairs. 

There was a bathroom to the left on the landing he’d missed, and Amanda tested all the spigots — the pipes clanked and sputtered, but nothing came out — and pointed out the biggest spiders that had made themselves at home in the bathtub and under it, their webs thick. Cupboards still filled with towels, mildewed and stained, once-bright colours faded with dust. 

Martin sneezed when Amanda dragged open the curtains, and politely didn’t snicker when she shrieked at a spider falling toward her face. It missed, landing on her arm, and she put it carefully into the tub with the rest of them. 

“Kinda spooky,” she said as they went back into the hall. “Almost like they just… _left,_ y’know? Whoever was living here.” 

Martin shrugged, trusting her judgment on that. The abandonment of the house wasn’t all that spooky to him, not after years of rolling through town after town and house after house and junkyard after junkyard — abandoned things felt familiar to him. 

The room she pulled him into next felt familiar, too, and Martin’s hand slipped from hers as he stopped dead in the doorway, sunlight spilling across the room from where someone had ripped the curtains from the rods, glittering over the broken glass of the mirror shards on the floor. 

Martin opened his mouth to warn her, tell her to watch her step, but nothing came out, his voice gone. 

That bed— 

The room— 

_It was the same one as his dream._

“You okay?” said Amanda, turning on her heel, boots crunching on glass, and her eyes widened. “Whoa, the _fuck_ is that?” 

Martin turned, a cold shiver running down the back of his neck and down his spine, and he jolted when Amanda’s hand closed around his again, both of them staring at the wall to the right of the doorway they had just walked through. 

_WE’RE WAITING FOR YOU CAM_ read the words, written in big, blocky letters, red and dried dripping, too bright to be blood— 

_—blood spilling bright red over his fingers, too thick and fast, he couldn’t stop it, dripping onto the dark brown dried blood from just the night before—_

—”-oly shit,” Amanda was saying, and her grip on his hand was almost painfully tight. “Is that— _blood?”_

Good to know their minds went right to the same place. “‘s paint,” muttered Martin. He didn’t need to touch it to know. 

What had that kid at the market said, though…? 

_“Like, real haunted, not just haunted house stuff. Some kid got murdered there. Like, for real murdered, and they say he still haunts the place.”_

Martin shivered. 

“You think this place is really haunted?” whispered Amanda, and Martin _wondered_ for a moment. 

The dream…

Hiding under the bed, the toy elephant… 

Martin glanced to the bed, at the white sheet covered in dust and dead flies draped over it. 

If he looked underneath, would the toy be there—? 

“Martin,” said Amanda, and he tore his gaze from the bed back to her. “Martin, you’re white as a ghost, yourself. What’s wrong?” 

“Nothin’,” said Martin, gaze drifting past her back to the wall with that unnerving message. 

There were faint outlines of something else, under the message and the grime coating boath, large and identifiable. 

Elephants. One after the other, walking in a jumbled line all the way around the walls of the room, dark silhouettes on the wallpaper. Not really cartoonish, not overly realistic, but recognisable enough, even for Martin, who wouldn’t have been able to say where elephants even _lived,_ other than a vague _somewhere that ain’t here._

Amanda’s hand slipped from his when he started moving, almost mechanically, toward the bed. 

He needed to see. See if it had been real, or if had just been a dream, after all. 

Martin tugged the dirty sheet back, flipping it over onto the bed, and dropped to his knees on the hard floor, aware of the glass littering the wood not too far from his knee. 

It had to have been a dream. Just a dream, just a— 

Even in the dim light under the bed afforded by the windows, Martin wasn’t blind enough that he could miss seeing the boxes shoved under the bed, jumbled together, corners of which had been torn and chewed by mice or some other busy rodent. 

The plush elephant he’d seen wasn’t there. Even if it had, it would’ve likely been in sad shape, same as the boxes. 

But— 

There were other things under there. Little plastic animals, spilling from a broken cardboard box. He tugged another one out, and it was full of splotchy, oranged books with stiff pages. Small metal cars, rusty and clumped together. A handful of mismatched dice that Martin’s fingers closed around before he could think about it. 

A little wooden duck on wheels with a string that rolled squeakily out from under the bed when he nudged it, slowing as it ran out of momentum, right at Gripps’s feet where he stood in the doorway to the room, the others squeezing past him when he stopped. 

“Oh,” said Gripps softly, and Martin was on his feet, moving again, the dice falling from his hand to scatter on the floor amidst the glass, two of them skittering across the floor to smack into the duck. 

The numbers facing up were four and two, Martin noted, a little absently, as he reached for Gripps. He _knew_ that look on his friend’s face, knew exactly what memories it was dredging up for him. 

“Gotchu, Gripps,” he murmured, pulling him into a tight embrace, and the others collided into them, adding on to the group hug in moments. 

“She had one just like it,” whispered Gripps, and Martin’s heart ached for him. “Always shared it, though. We’d all take turns. One, two, three.” 

“Ducks in a row,” Cross agreed somberly from somewhere in the hug. 

“She’s 27 years, 4 months, 12 days now. All grown up,” Gripps stated, holding them tighter. “Wonder if she even remembers me.”

Martin grunted and lightly headbutted his shoulder. “She remembers. They all do,” he said gruffly. 

Gripps shivered and nodded, eyes closed as he held his family as close as he could. Martin wished he could take some of that pain for him, bottle it up and smash it like they smash everything else. But this was one thing he couldn’t do for his boys, so he just held them tighter, just a moment longer. 

Couldn’t fix everything, but he could love them as much as he could. While he could. 

“Breathing is fun,” wheezed Vogel, somewhere in the middle, and Gripps loosened his iron grip on them with a grin, the embrace breaking. 

As he stepped back, Martin bumped into Amanda, stiff as a statue at his side, and he turned, following her gaze to the floor. 

The duck. 

The dice. 

“That was in my vision,” she said quietly, and the energy in the room _shifted,_ amped up on the sudden Rowdy _excitement_ that came with following their boss wherever the universe led her, and them. She crouched down, picking up the dice, and the duck, the string from which swung from her hand, the little wooden toggle at the end spinning slowly. “This house— it’s all connected, somehow.” 

She looked up at him, and for a moment her eyes weren’t hers, something dark and shining misshaping the colours for just an instant. 

“Witchakookoo navagations?” said Cross, and Vogel nodded vigorously, wiggling his fingers in the air to accentuate the _witchakookoo_ part, and Amanda smiled. 

“Yeah, Cross,” she said. “It’s _leading_ us somewhere. This was just a landmark.” She looked up at Martin again. “Time to go, boys.” 

—

The road stretched out flat before them, and Martin settled behind the wheel, aiming in the vague direction of “just keep going” Amanda had offered. Which, really, felt just about right with the tugging in his chest from the universe, that they needed to _keep going._ It wasn’t quite the pull of _keep moving keep moving_ that usually dragged him around by the seat of his pants, keeping his boys fed and as far away from Blackwing as possible, but it was no less urgent. 

Martin yawned, and took the next exit south. South felt right. 

_Wrong,_ in other ways. But right enough, when Amanda smiled at him from the passenger seat, the morning sunlight still soft on her face. 

Or maybe she was soft. Or _he_ was. 

The world certainly felt it, hazy and dreamy all at once, the road an endless ribbon of greying pavement and fading stripes of white and yellow. 

Easier to watch the road than to watch the world flit by in varying shades of greens and oranges and reds, the fall colours getting richer the further they traveled. 

They hadn’t been this south in awhile, had they? 

Mostly they kept to the west, really, far away as they could, but— 

—sometimes the road just called them where it did, and Martin couldn’t refuse the universe, not like this— 

_—not like this—_

—he couldn’t refuse Oz, not like this. 

_“Get in,” Oz had said. “We’re going for a drive,” he had said._

Martin had gotten into the truck, the rustbucket old Chevy that Oz had somehow gotten the man down at the used car lot to let him buy for a steal.

_He couldn’t refuse. Not this._

Oz had been _nice,_ recently. 

Nice-ish. 

Almost an entire year in their new apartment, far enough away from the house they’d grown up in that their parents didn’t drop in to visit unannounced, which Oz preferred, and Martin even had his own room, as bare and cold as it got, with the only space heater in Oz’s bedroom across the hall. Close enough to the city that Oz could drive home for lunch when he was working, never at a set time, and Martin had to be careful not to be caught doing anything he shouldn’t. 

Oz had even brought him a cupcake once, last week. Something from a catered work meeting, he’d said, and the thick frosting and soft cake had been a sickeningly sweet burst of chocolate on his tongue. 

_Literally_ sickening, Martin had been huddled in the bathroom for most of the night after, arms wrapped around his stomach and throat burning, but it had been worth it. 

Just that one little treat, one more bright memory he could hold onto in the dark. 

_—and it was so very, very dark—_

“How you feel about campin’ out in the truck tonight, Marty?” drawled Oz, the statement perfectly lilted into a question — it hadn’t been a question at all, and Martin just nodded, because he knew it, and Oz knew it, so there was no point arguing it. 

_—whatever Oz said was best just to follow along, it’d hurt less that way—_

“Lay out in the back, yeah?” said Oz, almost conversationally. Almost. “Under the stars, and all. Supposed to be a real nice night, might even catch some shooting stars. Wouldn’t that be nice.” 

“Sure,” said Martin, voice raspy, when the silence went on a little too long and he realised Oz was waiting for an answer. In his defense, though, Oz had the heat cranked up in the cab pretty high, and between that and how he hadn’t unzipped his hoodie at all, he was comfortably, sleepily warm—

_—music on the radio, rumbling and deep, stuttering with static—_

—and Oz turned off the country music he’d had on, the sun already setting over the trees, the coolness of the autumn night settling around them. He’d parked the truck in the back of a lot, practically in the grass, some gas station all lit up within sight but not close enough that Martin would dare try to walk there. 

“C’mere, let’s sit,” said Oz, and Martin got out of the truck, following his brother around to the tailgate, which squeaked loudly when Oz dropped it down, patting the dusty metal with one hand. “Sit, Marty. Bet you’re real tired, aren’t you? Hop on up, I’ll take a look at that leg.” 

Martin didn’t want him to, didn’t want those tanned fingers anywhere near him, but he sat on the tailgate, legs dangling, and Oz gripped his left knee, keeping his leg still while he tugged the leg of Martin’s jeans up a bit. 

Martin let his gaze drift over Oz’s head, out to the field across the road from them — the sunlight was still clinging over the gently swaying grass, casting it a warm orange. 

Oz peeled back the bandage around Martin’s shin, and Martin bit back a yelp, schooled his face out of the instinctive wince. The barely-closed scab had ripped with the lifted gauze, and he could feel a trickle of warm blood slide down his skin, down into his sock. 

He didn’t look—

— _blood coursing down his leg, Oz’s knife digging into his shin, tracing the muscle down and scraping at bone—_

—didn’t make a sound, even when Oz’s hand pressed roughly over the cut, wiping away the blood with a bit of gauze. Couldn’t let him know it hurt. 

“Bit of a mess, aren’t you, Marty?” said Oz with a heavy, put-upon sigh, and fished his ‘first aid’ kit from the cab, applying ointment and fresh bandages with all the care of a practiced nurse. “Let’s see if that holds alright, okay?” 

That was Martin’s only warning. 

Oz’s hand closed over the bandage, fingers pressing _hard_ into the would, even as he turned Martin’s leg a bit, as if to check that the bandage held. 

Tears had sprung to Martin’s eyes, but he didn’t let them fall. 

Couldn’t help a small sound escape his throat, though, low and pained, and Oz looked up at him, the last of the dusky light reflecting in his cold eyes. “No sympathy for monsters, Martin. Ain’t that right?” 

_—no sympathy for monsters—_

“Tha’s right,” whispered Martin, and Oz smiled as the tears slipped down his cheeks—

_—NO SYMPATHY FOR—_

_—MONSTERS—_

—

Amanda stretched out her legs in the passenger seat, wishing she’d thought to stretch more before herding everyone into the van. The itch under her skin, the stream of creation urging her tiny leaf self along, didn’t want to wait, some unknown urgency in the undercurrent. 

Not only that, but she was _worried._

About Martin. 

He’d been acting strangely recently. She was no stranger to nightmares, and she knew her boys weren’t, either. The only one who didn’t seem to be troubled by nighttime terrors was Beast, who could sleep through even Martin’s bumpier driving habits without a problem. 

And that’s how she knew these couldn’t be ordinary nightmares. Martin had been damn near impossible to wake when she’d shaken him that morning in the house, even more rattled than usual, and this was now the third or fourth night of them… 

...that she was _aware_ of. 

She could well imagine that he hadn’t been forthcoming about how often his nights were disturbed, and every time she’d tried to broach the subject with him, he had been less than interested and immediately waved her off, grumbling something like _“they’re jus’ nightmares, Drummer, had ‘em all m’life.”_ So she had sighed and let it go. When he was ready to talk, she would be there. 

And that’s how they found themselves nearly crashed, down a hill from the side of the road. 

Everything had been just about the regular level of weird/normal she was still getting used to, and the Oh No Mobile was rumbling under them a little bit louder than usual, with odd little barks from its engine, but Martin didn’t seem bothered, so she had ignored it, too. 

Or she _had._

Until the van started shaking for a _different_ reason, which was the wheels wavering off the edge of the pavement and the abrupt, stomach-dropping _weightlessness_ as the van fish-tailed in the soft dirt, skidding down and down at such a steep angle that Amanda felt her heart in her throat for the realisation that they might flip over— 

—but the van stayed upright, sliding to a halt in the dirt, her seat belt biting into her neck and shoulder and no airbags had gone off. 

For that matter, she wasn’t even sure the van _had_ airbags installed, let alone working. 

“Is everyone okay?” Amanda called into the back. She breathed a sigh of relief as they all hollered out their affirmatives, and then she turned her attention to Martin. 

He was unconscious and twitching, slumped over the steering wheel. His glasses had fallen from his face and she was sure she’d find them on the ground under his feet if she looked. In the back, the boys were anxiously jabbering. 

“Martin,” Amanda tried, shaking him firmly but getting no response. “It’s just a bad dream, okay? If you can hear me, it’ll be over soon. Hang in there.” She turned sharply when Cross poked his head up between their seats. 

“Boss?” he asked nervously. 

Amanda shook her head. “He’s not waking up, again. It’s not just overnight anymore,” she murmured. “They’re getting worse… I don’t know what to do,” she admitted softly. 

Cross leaned his head against her arm. “Don’t know if there’s much we _can_ do ‘til he wakes up… you’re doin’ your best, Drummer. This whole thing is crazy flakes.” Despite his words, his voice was steady, _calm,_ as if he had plenty of faith in her to go around. 

Amanda kept trying for another few minutes, but then resolved to just hold Martin’s hand until whatever this was, was over. She squeezed it tightly as she murmured to him, scared rowdies watching from the back.

—

In total, it was only about ten minutes from when his head hit the wheel to when Martin awoke, sucking in breath after shuddered breath. But it had felt like a lifetime to the rest of them, all sitting there in baited, heavy silence. 

“Hey! There you are,” Amanda started, her head shooting up from where her forehead had been resting against his hand. “It was a nightmare, whatever you saw in there. You are safe. You are in the van, with me and the boys and Rainbow.” 

He looked around the van, eyes wild and slow to focus. The others watched with worried intent. Eventually his gaze settled on hers, grief-stricken blue eyes to worried brown ones. He just stared for a long moment, and then slumped forward, collapsed into her arms, shaking and trembling. 

“I’ve got you,” Amanda murmured as she leaned further over the console to get her arms around him. “You’re safe.” She could feel hot tears against her shoulder but she didn’t comment. 

“I can’t do this anymore,” he mumbled into her shirt. “They jus’ keep coming.” 

Amanda held him tighter. “Let me help, Martin. Please,” she murmured. “There’s something not right about all of this.”

He was tense and said nothing, but eventually he nodded. 

“I want to try dreaming with you, if that’s alright with you?” she said, and a shiver wracked through him, shaking her. “This has to stop, Martin. And if there’s a way I can help, I want— I _need_ to.” She couldn’t put it in words any clearer than that, that ache in her to _fix this._ Something was hurting her Rowdy, and she _needed_ to stop it. 

“Can’t let it hurt you,” he muttered, and she held him tighter. 

“I’m tough, right?” said Amanda. “I’ll kick the ass of _anyone_ that tries to hurt you. Hurt _us.”_ Martin had pulled back, just a bit, lifting his head, and she cradled his face in her hands a little too firm. “Ain’t got no place to be but here for you.” His mournful gaze met hers, the slightest pull at his lips at those words, there and gone in an instant. “You hear me, Martin?” 

“I hear ya,” he said softly, and he looked so _tired_ in that moment that she wanted to just pull him into her arms and _hold_ him, for as long as he needed. 

But that wouldn’t help, not yet anyway. She smoothed her thumbs over his cheeks, the coarse edge of his beard. Held his gaze, watchful and trusting. “Let’s get our bucket of rust back on the road, yeah? Find us a good place to hole up for a while. You let me drive this time, though.” 

He nodded slowly and then got out of the van. Amanda climbed over the console into the driver seat, bending to retrieve his glasses and hold them out the door to him. 

“Boys!” He whistled and they jumped out the back door, leaving Beastie to climb up and push her head between the front seats to watch. The boys all got behind the van and pushed it up out of the ditch and onto the road, Amanda guiding with the steering wheel as they went. 

Once they were back onto the road, they all piled back in, Martin in the passenger seat this time. And then they were off, the van rumbling under her hands, her foot pressed hard on the gas pedal to reach it. 

Amanda glanced over at Martin as he flipped down the sun visor, just a quick look to check on him, and she saw him flinch, hand reaching up to swiftly slap the mirror on the backside of the visor closed — the mirror she’d left open, when she’d been fixing her makeup — before he settled back into his seat. His glasses were still in his hand, the frames a little bent and the lenses scuffed with dirt. 

She looked up at the visor ahead of her before she got her gaze back on the road where it should be, mouth set in a grim line. The mirror on the driver’s side visor had been torn out entirely, the fabric ratty and darker than the rest of it, sun-bleached, a rectangle gouge. 

—

Amanda didn’t ask for a vote or anything before she drove the van into the parking lot of a motel as the sun was beginning to set on the horizon, painting the remaining foliage on the trees a brilliant, bloodied orange. Martin tossed her the wallet without a word, and she marched into the lobby with Vogel on her heels — strength in numbers. 

Not that she had any problem getting a room for them, and smiled politely through the garbage about whatever rules the place had about noise or whatever, and slapped some money on the counter in exchange for a room key, a cheap plastic triangle dangling from the ring and the number _42_ in blocky text written on it. 

Looking down the row of doors on the building, though, she doubted that there were twenty-five rooms, let alone forty. 

“Let’s roll, boys,” she called, and the van shook as there was loud scrambling from inside before the other four jumped out, boots stomping and doors slamming. Martin lit up a cigarette, loitering by the van as the others roamed around the lot — Gripps found a set of pink flamingos set in the bare dirt in front of one of the other rooms and was quick to relocate them in front of the door Amanda said was theirs. 

Beast was poking through the skimpy flowerbeds, and Amanda had handed Cross the key to the room so he and Vogel could investigate — she heard a crash from inside and an uptick of raucous giggles, so she figured they were fine — and she went to stand next to Martin, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jacket and pretending it was from the cold and not that she wanted to reach out and touch him. 

“We’re doing this,” she said, and she wished her voice sounded as firm as it did in her head. Martin let out a grunt, huffing out a lungful of smoke, and glanced at her, the lights from the rooms behind her reflecting in his glasses. “Might as well have some comfy beds to do it in if we’re gonna do something… uncomfy.” 

Martin shrugged, flicking ash onto the pavement. Didn’t make a comment about the heat rising in her face as she realised she’d just told him they were going to _do it_ in a bed, or maybe he just didn’t see. Bad enough he could probably taste the embarrassment on her. “Could be bad, Drummer.” 

“It _has_ been bad,” she said. “For long _enough.”_

He shook his head. “For _you.”_

“I don’t _care,”_ said Amanda, and held out her hand. She couldn’t say that whatever it was, whatever it _took,_ it couldn’t be worse than the way her heart ached for him for how he was already hurting. “You coming in?” 

Martin dropped the cigarette butt, ground it out under his boot. Took her hand. 

Let her lead him to the room, and whatever would happen next. 

—

Rowdies weren’t _built_ to be indoors, but they weren’t immune to the comforts of a soft bed, and while the motel _did_ look pretty shitty on the outside, the beds were _very_ soft. The room Amanda had gotten for them had two big beds, with more pillows on them than seemed strictly necessary — Gripps and Cross had dealt with that interior decorating error easily enough by whipping the pillows through the air at each other until they were cackling too much to aim well and the pillows stayed on the floor where they fell. 

There was even a shower, and Amanda promised herself she was definitely gonna push the hot water heater’s capabilities to the max in the morning, but she didn’t do much more than splash some water on her face and brush her teeth with the toothbrush Cross had offered her with a flourish, and the cotton candy sweet toothpaste she’d nicked from the stash in the van. 

She stared at the face looking back at her in the mirror over the sink, eyes tired and worried under the smears of two days’ worth of eyeshadow. Wiped some toothpaste from the corner from her mouth and spat into the sink, rinsing again. 

Another crash from the room, and she dropped the toothbrush in the sink, stepping out of the bathroom to find Vogel and Cross had knocked over the tv stand facedown, and Gripps was hefting the old television onto the much lower flat of the back, in front of a mass of pillows and blankets on the floor between the beds. 

There were still two pillows and some blankets on the bed closest to the door, and Martin was sprawled on it, back propped up against the headboard and feet bare. He tilted his head to look at her when she nearly tripped on Beastie, laid out on the floor like a starfish, and she picked her way through the tangle of limbs and blankets to climb up onto the bed beside Martin. 

The mattress was _soft,_ softer than she’d expected, and it sank under her weight and sent her leaning hard into Martin’s side. His arm slid around her, settling her close.

The tv flicked on, the volume swiftly ratcheted down to a low murmur, the lights from the screen flickering as Vogel flipped off the overhead lights before vaulting back into the blanket nest on the floor. 

Amanda dropped her head back against Martin’s arm to look up at him. “You wanna give this a try?” 

“No,” said Martin softly, his voice rumbling in his chest, right against her side. “But I trust ya.” 

Amanda reached up and caught his hand, the gauze wrapped around it rough on her fingers. “I _will_ fix this,” she said. “Okay?” 

He looked down at her, huffing a soft sigh. “Yeah,” he said. “Okay, Drummer.” 

Amanda slid down lower on the bed, tugging gently on his hand, and with a grumble he finally slid down to lay beside her, letting her pull his arm more firmly around her. His glasses were pushed to the side a bit on his face, but he didn’t take them off, and she didn’t ask if he wanted to, just held his hand, waiting until he closed his eyes with a sigh before turning her head to tuck under his chin. 

Amanda closed her eyes, keeping her purpose bright in her mind, feeling Martin’s breathing slow and deepen beside her, the muttering and soft giggles of the Rowdies on the floor beside them. 

This had to work. It _had_ to. 

She sometimes could go to the Backstage in her dreams, and she had a theory that she could make this work. It couldn’t be _that_ hard, right? 

Sleep overtook her, and she found herself walking through the backstage, everything dark and void, until she found a door. It was a simple thing, old and wooden, with a round brass knob. She took a deep breath and then pulled it open. 

—

She saw Martin, glowing a faint blue, standing alone in the foyer of the haunted house they had explored a few days before. He looked terrified, which wasn’t something she was used to seeing on him. At least not until recently. The gauze was gone from his hand, and bright red blood dripped from his fingers to the floor, glittering blue before it faded. 

“Drummer?” He looked up and she could see the relief that flooded across his face. 

“I’m here, Martin. I’m here,” she assured, stepping in to join him. 

The door disappeared behind her. 

Then the sounds began. Footsteps and creaking. Rattling and then short grunted screams in the distance. 

Martin’s whole body tensed up again, his eyes going everywhere as he searched their surroundings. But there was nothing. 

He glanced at her. His eyes were so blue here, a sort of drifting, hazy quality to them, just like the shimmer at his edges. “Tha’s how it starts lately,” he murmured. “Th’ rattlin. The noises.” 

Amanda looked down at her own hands, pale and thin, like a paper doll. She wasn’t glowing blue like Martin was, just a faded white gleam. “What’s making the sound, then?” 

Martin grimaced. His teeth looked too sharp, for a moment. “Dice.” 

Amanda blinked at him. “Like… playing dice?” The thought of her vision pushed its way forward, as weighty as the dice themselves, still in her pocket. 

The rattling got louder. 

Martin shrugged. “I guess.” He hesitated, then held out his hand. “Comin’?” 

Amanda put her hand in his, and felt a little less like a paper cut-out. “Where are we going?” 

“You tell me, Drummer. This is all—” he gestured vaguely ahead of them with his free hand, shaking his head. “‘s all a labyrinth t’ me. Leads me somewhere new each time.” 

His hand was cold in hers. 

Amanda held it tighter. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s go see who the fuck is messing with you.” 

Martin had been right — the dreamspace _was_ labyrinthian, twisting under her feet and making her slip and slide like gravity didn’t have that much of a hold on her. The only thing solid was Martin’s hand in hers, burning cold. 

And the incessant _rattling_ noise. 

The dice. 

“Who’s rolling them?” Amanda asked, and Martin didn’t look at her, something tight in his jaw, in his eyes. She opened her mouth to ask again. 

A figure rose from the shadows in front of them, just for a moment, before sinking back into the swirling nothingness. 

She _knew_ that face. 

“I know that guy,” she said. “Where do I know that guy from?” 

“Priest,” muttered Martin. 

“ _Oz…”_ whispered another voice, and Amanda spun, tightening her iron grip on Martin’s hand, but there was no one there. 

“He’s th’ one shot at you ‘n Vogel.” 

_“Oh,”_ said Amanda. “He was wearing your clothes. And he had the van.” 

“Yeah.” Martin’s lip curled, his teeth sharp and white. 

“Oh, baby brother! You’re not _really_ going to introduce me like that to your little _girlfriend_ now, are you?” Priest clucked from somewhere unseen. “Mama didn’t raise you to be so disrespectful! Guess it’s up to me to _teach you your manners,”_ he cooed as he stepped around a corner, blocking their way forward. 

Martin froze on the spot, eyes downturned and posture gone rigid. Amanda looked for another way out, but when she turned around Priest was there, blocking the way they had come, too. She recognised his face, alright, only it was _different,_ a thin, awful scar cutting from his hairline down his nose, all the way down to his chin. 

“Martin,” said Amanda, squeezing his hand, but that just made his weird, red-going-blue blood drip stickily over her fingers. “It’s just a dream, Martin. He’s not real.” 

“That’s where you’re _wrong,_ little girl,” said Priest, and _his hand was on her arm,_ cold leeching into her skin, into her _bones,_ and she screamed— 

—and it stopped, just as fast as it began, his hand sinking through her like a ghost, as Martin’s hand slipped from hers. 

She turned, gasping his name, and Priest’s hands were on Martin’s face, streaky and blue-green and _wrong,_ and Martin’s mouth was open in a soundless scream— 

_“It’s what he does,”_ whispered the soft voice from before, and Amanda screamed in rage, launching herself at Priest, only succeeding in sliding right through him and crashing into Martin, who hit the ground with a grunt, Amanda sprawled on top of him. 

“When did you become so _disobedient,_ Marty?” said Priest, and Martin coughed, blue, shimmering blood spilling over his lips and into his beard, running down his face from his eyes like the colour was draining right from those pale irises. 

_“You should just listen to him,”_ came the voice again, so _tired_ for how terribly young and high it sounded. _“Then it’ll stop.”_

“Fuck you, dude,” said Amanda to Priest, and he laughed, just standing there and watching with _amusement_ on his stupid face as she scrambled off of Martin and hauled him to his feet, keeping a firm grip on his hands. He was coughing, face blurry to her for just a moment, and she tightened her grip and roared, _“LEAVE HIM ALONE!”_

_“Alone?”_ repeated Priest, and he laughed again, a chill running down Amanda’s spine at the sound. “Yes, he _deserves_ to be alone, you’re right. All alone, where he can never hurt anyone again. _Isn’t that right, Martin?”_

“No,” said Amanda, but Martin wasn’t looking at her, his gaze trapped by Priest. “No, that’s not true, Martin, don’t listen to him.” 

“Don’ wanna hurt you,” he murmured, the words accompanied by more of that liquid blue light. His beard was soaked with it, more dripping down onto his vest and shirt. “Don’ let me hurt you.” 

“You’d never hurt me,” insisted Amanda. “Martin, _listen_ to me—!” 

“Yes, _listen_ to the silly little girl,” drawled Priest. “Who’re you gonna trust, Marty? Me, your own _brother,_ who’s _always_ looked after you? Or some slip of a girl who doesn’t _know_ you like I do?” 

“I—” Martin’s voice broke off with a choke. “I can’t—” 

_“Just stop fighting,”_ whispered the voice. _“That would be better, right? To stop fighting. To make it all stop.”_

“No it fucking _wouldn’t,”_ snapped Amanda, and she kept one hand gripping Martin’s and reached up with the other, digging her fingers into his beard and jumping up til she got a good grip on his hair, yanking him down. He coughed, more of that shimmering blood splattering down the front of her shirt, but she ignored it. “Look at me,” she said, _ordered,_ and Martin’s pale eyes, practically colourless now, finally met hers. “Don’t you fucking look away,” she said, and pressed a kiss to his forehead, feeling him shudder under her hands. _“It’s just a dream, Martin.”_

Then he was gone, out from under her hands like he’d never been there, and she caught one last glimpse of Priest’s furiously smug face before she was gone, too. 

—

Amanda sat up with a gasp, and the lights all flipped on in a scurry of flailing Rowdy limbs, Martin coughing like he was trying to hack up a lung next to her. She’d ended up halfway off the bed, and she rolled back to keep from falling, scrambling up and reaching for Martin. 

“Hey, _hey,_ it’s alright, you’re alright,” she said, and he finally got a wheezing breath in, shoving his glasses back up his nose and nodding slightly, eyes fully blue and so _tired_ looking back at her. “Okay?” 

“Okay,” he said, voice a little too raw for that really to be true, but he squeezed her hand when she offered it and didn’t protest when Vogel launched himself at him for a hug, Amanda getting dragged in during her attempt to not get a bony Vogel elbow to the face, and the others joined them in moments. 

All of them, in a crushing embrace on the bed, Cross’s arm keeping her from falling off the bed entirely and Gripps’s shoulder keeping her smooshed right into Martin’s. She could feel every breath he took, and she was pretty sure the hair that had just gotten in her mouth was Beast’s, and she was _shaking._

Someone had _been in that dream._

Someone had _done_ that, _made_ that nightmare for Martin, had made him suffer through it. 

Her fingers curled in the fabric of someone’s shirt, trying to still the shaking, but the burning _fury_ rising like bile in her throat was making that a bit hard. 

_Someone had done this to Martin._

—

She didn’t ask about it, not right away. 

She and Martin had been sitting knee to knee on the bed for half the morning, just being there for each other as Amanda processed everything she had seen in the dream, and Martin prepared himself to talk about it. The boys and Rainbow had gone off early in the morning, with Gripps ushering them out the door after sharing a pained look with Amanda. 

And she hadn’t said anything. Just let the silence sit there, like they were sitting, until she got that wild rage closed tight in her fists and she could breathe around the desire to run out and punch a man named Priest in the face several hundred times. 

_God,_ did she want to punch him. 

“We’re twins,” Martin announced finally into the silence between them, the words gruff, stilted. “He’s older by a few minutes,” he added, not looking Amanda in the eyes. 

Priest— 

—was Martin’s _brother?_

The guy who had tried _very, very hard_ to kill not just her but Vogel as well, in the not too distant past, who had said such horrid things to Martin in that dream with enough truth in them for Martin to be _hurt_ by those words… 

His _brother?!_

“And he— he was like that when you were young?” she asked hesitantly, fearing the answer. 

“All our lives,” Martin confirmed stiffly. He looked so _uncomfortable,_ and the words sounded so forced. “Oz—” He shook his head slowly. “Wasn’ th’ nicest of brothers, ah guess.” 

“Mine can be a little shit,” said Amanda, because Todd _could,_ and he very often was, “but… that guy— Martin, he really seemed to _hate_ you.” 

Martin shrugged. Fished his pack of cigarettes from his pocket, but didn’t pull one out, just fidgeted with the pack in his hand. “Dunno if he does,” he said quietly. “Dunno if he _loved_ me, if he ever could. Never could figure out just what got ‘m tickin’.” He took a breath, glancing at Amanda, lightning quick, the light from the window skittering over his glasses and obscuring his eyes for an instant. 

She could still remember the sticky feel of his dream-blood on her hands. 

“He weren’t— _good_ t’ me,” he said. “Did a lot a’ shit that I ain’t gonna talk about— I _can’t,”_ he said, the words as broken as the look he was giving her, and Amanda reached out to gently rest her hand on top of his, on his knee. 

“I wouldn’t ask that of you,” she murmured, holding his gaze. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, alright?” 

He nodded minutely, turning his hand over and lacing their fingers together. 

“We’ve got your back. Me, the boys, Rainbow—” Amanda smiled a little and squeezed his hand. “You’ve always got our backs, and I know you know we have yours too, but I’ll say it again. We’re going to get to the bottom of this nightmare shit, and we’re gonna end it,” she said resolutely. “That guy, Priest, the things he said—” She shook her head. “Martin, none of that shit is true. You have us, always.” 

Martin wasn’t looking at her anymore, but he ran his thumb across the back of her hand, staring down at the sheets on the bed. He nodded slightly, and Amanda didn’t miss the way his hand was trembling in hers. 

The Rowdies came exploding back into the room around the same time Amanda’s stomach was beginning to grumble about lunch. 

“We got burrittooosssss!” Vogel announced excitedly as he flung himself onto the bed and into Amanda’s lap. Cross had grabbed the bottles of cider out of the van on his way in, as well as some of the candy and snacks they had picked up at the grocery store at the very beginning of this whole mess. They all piled onto the bed, surrounding her and Martin with laughter, love, and wonderfully shitty take-out. 

Amanda couldn’t help but look around and smile at the sight of it all. 

They had each other.

Always.

—

Martin slid into sleep only a little more willingly than the previous nights, knowing Amanda would be there with him. He didn’t feel great about that, about dragging her into this mess of his life. But he knew it had to happen if there was any hope of him ever getting a night’s peace again. With his arm tucked around her middle, he let himself drift off. 

He opened his eyes into the same house as before, looking around immediately for Amanda. He knew she’d be there any moment, but he couldn’t help the dread that gripped him anyway, only settling once he felt her hand slip into his and squeeze. 

“I’m here.” 

He gave her a tight smile and squeezed back. “Y’sure about this?” he asked, but he already knew the answer. 

“We have to find out who’s doing this to you, Martin. We have to find them so we can end this.” She was steadfast and the determination written across her face could move mountains. 

“If y’r sure,” he said with a nod. He didn’t know what he would do without her. “Shall we?” He cocked his head towards the entryway into the living room. 

“I’ll be by your side the whole time,” she confirmed, leading him in. 

The rattling started immediately. It echoed off the walls and up from the floor, impossible to tell the source. Martin shivered. 

“Want to play a game?” drawled that familiar voice, right by his ear, and Martin _flinched,_ stumbling sideways and bumping into Amanda, nearly knocking them both over. 

_Oz was there._

Just standing there, smiling, shaking his hand absently at his side. 

_Rattle, rattle._ The dice. 

The goddamned _dice._

“No,” whispered Martin. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want Amanda to see this. “Don’t.” 

“You know the rules, don’t you, Marty?” Oz just kept smiling, stepping right up to him, holding out his closed fist. 

Waiting. 

“No,” said Martin again, but his voice was weak, and his hand came up to accept the dice Oz dropped into them. “No, please—” 

“Roll the dice, Marty,” said Oz, ever so patient. Martin’s hands were trembling, the dice clacking against the metal of his rings. “Don’t keep me waiting, now.” 

He felt cold. So, so cold. 

Martin opened his hand, and the dice fell, clattering across the floor to stop by Oz’s pristine boots. 

Oz smiled. “Six,” he said, almost _cheerfully._ “Four and a two, you know what that means, Marty boy.” 

Martin shook his head, tried to take a step back, but he was _frozen,_ all the warmth leached from his body, and Oz’s hand closed around his throat. 

Squeezing. 

Martin tried to get in a breath, just one, but Oz’s grip was already too tight, and he struggled, trying to keep his feet on the ground and Oz lifted him, the toes of his boots scrabbling at the floor, the dimly lit hotel room blurring around him. 

“Shouldn’t have made me wait,” purred Oz, and he let go of Martin’s neck, only for his knee to come up and slam into Martin’s stomach, knocking the half a breath he’d managed to take out of him, and Martin crumpled to the floor, glasses knocked from his face and skittering away, gone. 

He tried to catch his breath, tried to curl in on himself, tried not to think about what came next. 

He knew what those numbers meant. 

He _knew._

“Good,” said Oz, and his fingers dug into Martin’s scalp, grasping hair and yanking his head back. “You haven’t forgotten. At least _some_ of my lessons stuck, then. Wish more ‘f ‘em had, don’t we? Would’ve been much less trouble from you all this time.” 

Then Oz took hold of Martin’s wrist, and twisted it. 

_One, two, three, four—_

Martin didn’t make it to the count of six before he screamed. 

—

Martin’s hand had slipped from hers, the moment Priest had appeared next to them, and when Amanda reached for him again, she was stumbling back a step, her fingertips brushing against the back of his jacket. 

And when Martin took what Oz handed him, when those dice rolled to the floor, Amanda didn’t need to squint at them to know what numbers they’d landed on. 

Same as her vision before. 

Same as the ones he’d found under the bed, in that house.

“Leave him _alone!”_ she yelled, lunging at Priest, but she fell right through him like he was made of air, landing on her knees on the floor. The space around shifted, the lighting dim and orange like a cheap lightbulb, rough carpeting rising up to her fingers, the view of just about any motel room. 

She scrambled to her feet, and Martin was on the floor, held down by Dream Priest, the other man’s hand yanking on his hair. Priest said something she didn’t catch, because she was trying to _make_ her hands grab him, wanting to pull him off of Martin, but she was invisible to him, untouchable. 

The Martin on the floor wasn’t _her_ Martin, the rowdy blonde who’d accepted her into his life, his Rowdies, without a moment’s hesitation. _This_ Martin was young, younger than she was, skinny as a twig and drowning in a too-big hoodie, bruises on his skin and fear in his eyes. 

Then Priest grabbed Martin’s skinny, bracelet-free wrist, and _twisted._

Something cracked, and Martin screamed, his body _flickering,_ bright and blue, and for a moment he was himself again. 

But he didn’t see her, not when she went to him, not as Priest let go of his arm and straightened, stepping back with a humourless smile as Martin writhed on the floor. 

“There we go,” said Priest, and he sounded so _pleased_ with himself that Amanda wanted to get her hands around _his_ throat and strangle him. “I saw you, Martin. I _know_ you wanted a taste of that girl, the one in the shop. And what if I hadn’t stopped you, hmm? What if you’d _hurt_ her, Marty?” 

“Don’t listen to him,” said Amanda frantically, resting a hand on Martin’s shoulder, but he shuddered at the touch, and she jerked her hand back immediately. “Please, Martin, _listen to me,_ it’s just a dream.” 

“You would’ve drained her dry,” said Priest softly, lifting a hand to inspect his nails. “You should be _grateful,_ Marty, that I stopped you from killing her.” 

A whimper escaped Martin, and he was too-young again, scared and broken, and when he opened his eyes, he looked right through Amanda like she wasn’t there. “Yes,” he said, his voice rasping in his throat, raw. “I’m— grateful.” 

“Stop,” whispered Amanda, but he couldn’t see her, couldn’t hear her. He was trapped in this dream, and she still didn’t know what was keeping him there. 

She wasn’t supposed to be doing this _alone._

“Martin. I need you to hear me,” Amanda begged, crouched beside Martin’s hunched and bruised body. He was too caught in the fear of his memories and there was nothing she could do to get him out of it. 

She worried her lip as she watched him writhe in pain, making a decision. “I’m going to go out there and see if I can find out who’s behind this, okay?” Amanda felt sick at the thought of leaving him like this. “It’s just a nightmare. Once we find out who’s behind it, we can stop them for good. He can’t hurt you anymore,” she murmured, purposefully keeping her hands to herself. 

The dream Priest crowed delightedly, his face splitting into a wicked grin. “Get a load of that hooey, little brother! She’s leaving you, just like we always knew she would! No one could love a monster like you, Marty. They’ll always leave, but I never will. You’d be lost without me.”

“Oh, stuff a fucking sock in it,” Amanda growled. She leaned in quick and pressed her forehead to Martin’s, _her_ Martin’s, holding him close. “I’m with you, always,” she whispered. “I’ll see you on the other side.” 

And with that she stood and ran out the door, forcing herself not to look back as she heard Martin scream. It took all her focus and concentration then to really _open the door,_ to take herself past this staged arena and get to the Backstage. 

She threw herself forward and into the dark.

—

Martin could barely hear her as she spoke. 

His blood rushing in his ears, vision wobbling and blurry. He looked up at her with panicked, unseeing eyes, trying to concentrate on just her but he couldn’t help the way his focus clung to his brother’s jeering, how easily he fell into old memories. 

He whined when she pressed their foreheads together and for a moment there was clarity. She was here. His Drummer was here, always. He was out and free. This was a nightmare and it would all be over soon, he just had to hold on. 

But then she was gone and Oz was on him again and he couldn’t remember where the line between dream and reality lay. His vision was whiting out and he could hear screaming. He didn’t quite realize it was his own. 

—

Amanda saw the giant legs tucked underneath a giant body and ran for them. “WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!” she shouted as she ran, not sure how she was going to stop this, but ready to throw herself into an attack all the same. _This was who was doing this to Martin. This was who was hurting him_. 

As she approached, however, a giant hand came into view and laid down in front of her, palm up. It beckoned her forward. She didn’t hesitate as she stepped up onto the hand, only starting a little as she was raised up high into the air. She quickly came face to giant face with the same big brown eyes she had seen in her vision. They were dull and sad, and most shocking of all, they were incredibly young. 

“Who are you? Why are you doing this to him?” Amanda demanded, though her rage was dampening at the sight of those eyes. She looked up and really took in the face in front of her, a child’s face. 

Scared, tired, and beaten. Just like Martin had been, laying on the floor of that dream motel room. 

_“Help me. Please,”_ came the soft response, the same little voice that had been following them through the last dream, and the remnants of her rage fell away. Only to redirect as she came to the natural conclusion of who could possibly be behind all of this. Torture Martin, torture a child, there was only one possible monster who could be behind it all. 

Amanda raised her hand slowly, reaching up to place it against the child’s cheek. “Fuck. Okay. We are coming to find you, okay? We’re gonna get you out of there. Is he keeping you at Blackwing?” she asked. 

The child closed their eyes and nodded, a large tear practically the size of Amanda herself slipped down their cheek, and she had to move out of the way to avoid getting soaked. “What’s your name?” she asked softly. 

“....Cam,” was the soft reply. 

Amanda looked up and made eye contact with those giant brown eyes again. “Like at the house...” she murmured, realization dawning on her. “I’m Amanda. Stay strong, Cam. We’re coming.” 

And then they woke up. 

—

Amanda came back to her body gasping, immediately rolling over to get to Martin, who was groaning and curled into himself. “Hey, I’m right here. I’m right here,” she murmured urgently. “You’re okay. You’re safe, Martin. You’re safe.”

Martin’s eyes snapped open, his gaze snapping to meet hers as he took a deep, shuddering breath. “Drummer.” 

“Right here,” she said, and he reached for her hand, fingers twining with hers easily. “You’re okay.” 

“Th’ hell was that…?” he muttered. His hand felt cold in hers, and that was _wrong._ There was nothing cold about Martin. “Y’find them, Drummer?”

“Yeah,” she said quietly. “It was just a kid, Martin. A _kid.”_ She took a breath. “And he’s trapped in Blackwing.” 

—

Mr Priest hadn’t _told_ him that someone else would be in that dream. 

Project Bogle didn’t even know someone else _could_ get there, not with him already controlling it, channeling Mr Priest into it. He didn’t know how that could even work. 

And she had been _nice_. Kind and genuine. Nothing like Mr. Priest, or the scientists. She had given him hope, something he hadn’t had in a long time. 

_Amanda_. 

He didn’t know if _we_ meant just her and Martin, or if there were others. But he knew they were coming for him. Amanda was coming and she was going to get him out of here. They were going to save him.

Project Bogle’s head shot up when he heard the rattling, followed by the footsteps he knew too well. There was no way Mr Priest could know about what had happened in last night’s dream. He just had to remember that. He took a deep breath and steeled himself for whatever happened next. He heard the lock on the door slide back with the steady _click, click, clunk_ that signified it unlocking. 

This was it. 

The rattle came again, louder, and it made him think about that _Nature_ show he’d watched about poisonous snakes around the world. 

Rattlesnakes. 

Mr. Priest didn’t have a diamond pattern down his back, or a forked tongue, or fangs, but there was something in the way he moved that made Project Bogle think of snakes. 

Every time. 

“Cameron,” called Mr. Priest, shaking the dice enticingly as he sat down at the little table, in one of the tiny chairs. Project Bogle slowly stood up from his little bunk bed and became Cameron again. “Feel like a game?” 

Cam sat stiffly in the little chair across from Mr. Priest. He tried to remind himself there was no way he could know about Amanda. Cam shuffled awkwardly and his knees bumped into the table — he’d been growing again, and he hated it, staying slouched forward in his seat to keep his jumpsuit from pulling across his chest. “Just one?” 

One round would be okay. Maybe two. As long as Mr. Priest didn’t find out what he had done.

“To start,” said Mr. Priest in his gentle drawl. “Would you like to roll them?” 

Cam picked up the battered little plastic box that held the dice, glancing at the letters inside. He could do this. He just had to stay calm. Amanda was coming to save him. “I’m gonna beat you this time.” 

Mr. Priest smiled. 

_Snake smile._

“We’ll see how it goes, won’t we, Cameron?” 

—

“Okay. We need another vision,” Amanda announced when the rest of the Rowdies had returned to the motel room later that day. “We have no leads on where this kid could be or how we’re going to find him.” They all looked at her skeptically, not liking the implications of where this was going. She soldiered on anyway. “Time is of the essence, and all that shit. The longer we wait for another attack to just _happen_ , the longer a child is stuck in Blackwing with a monster. So, I’m going to induce an attack.” 

“Boss—” Cross looked from Amanda’s determined expression, to Martin’s one of resignation. “Right. So how we doing this?”

“We’re working with limited resources here. So I’m going to start by putting my hands in the freezer to see if that triggers anything. If that doesn’t work I have a few more ideas, but this is the easiest,” Amanda said. No one liked this plan, but they all knew it had to happen. 

“We’ve got you, Boss. We’ll be right here the whole time,” Gripps assured. 

She nodded and then sat down in front of the mini fridge, under the desk, throwing the door open and sliding her hands into the freezer compartment. “Oh fuck, that’s cold!” she swore, wincing at the burn of wet cold. Martin tensed at her side, the other boys all crowding around as well. Rainbow sat back on the bed, keeping out of their way for this. 

“‘S it working?” Cross asked over Amanda’s shoulder, watching her intently. 

“Maybe. It’s certainly cold enough, just give it a moment,” she rambled, tips of her fingers starting to hurt. This had to work. For Martin. For Cam. She needed this to work.

A shiver ran up her spine as the cold against the pulse point of her wrists seemed to freeze her blood, spreading up through her veins and through her body. She froze in place, feeling like an ice sculpture, like the cold would never end. She tried to take a breath but even her lungs felt frozen, her voice dying in her throat when she tried to scream for help. 

Her boys were on her in seconds, taking her in their arms when she began to collapse. Her vision went blue and hazy as they began to feed, and then it went dark and she was Backstage again. 

She saw Cam, alone in a white cell, curled up on the bottom bunk of a metal framed bunk bed. She saw flashes of a symbol, the same symbol as the one on Cam’s jumpsuit, light grey with a charcoal stripe. She saw another duck, a big neon sign, warm sun, a cold truck, and then dice again, filling her with more dread this time after her dreams with Martin. 

She came to, gasping for breath. “I saw him. I saw Cam,” she gasped. 

“Breathe, Drummer. Breathe first, then tell us whatcha saw.” Martin held both of her hands in his, and they were so warm she wanted to cry. She leaned into that warmth and nodded, getting her bearings as the last of the cold faded away. Someone had closed the fridge and moved her back a few inches while she was out. They all sat in a semi-circle around her, watching closely. 

“Okay,” she breathed. “I saw Cam, so these next clues should definitely put us on the right track.” They all nodded. Martin squeezed her hands gently. 

“I saw Cam’s symbol, it’s like a little man with a triangle in it? Wait, grab that notepad off the desk.” Vogel scrambled around and then presented the pad and pen to her with a little flourish. She quickly drew the symbol while she could still remember it, and they all leaned in to look at it, frowning and shaking their heads. Not one they recognised, then. 

“His jumpsuit looked different than the ones you had. I remember yours were all white with red. His was a light grey with like a charcoal stripe? I didn’t know Blackwing did colors.” 

The boys all looked a little uncomfortable but there were a couple nods. Gripps was the only one to speak up. “Sorting system. Keep the collection organized,” he said disdainfully. 

“Oh. That’s fucked up,” Amanda murmured. “Good to know though, could be useful. I also saw—” She made a face as she recalled it. “There was a duck? Like the real kind you see in a pond? Or like at a lake?” She shook her head. “I don’t know how that helps. But there was sunshine and an old truck. And a big neon sign.” Her brows furrowed as she tried to remember the flickering words. “A casino, maybe? I’m not sure.” 

Beside her, Martin stiffened, and when she glanced at him, his face was pale. “Ah might have a guess at where they’re hidin’,” he said, his voice gruff and very, very stilted. 

Amanda had a bad feeling about this. 

—

Martin drove. 

He wasn’t tired, not enough to sleep at the wheel, and there was too much unsettled energy rattling its way through his frame for him to let Amanda drive. Not this time. Not when his hands on the wheel knew just where to turn, gunning the rumbling engine onward, the yellowing foliage rushing by as they headed further south. 

He knew where they were going, and every instinct in his body was warning him to stay far, far away from that place. _Years_ of shifting their routes to avoid it made his hands tremble on the wheel, but one glance at Amanda in the passenger seat beside him and Rainbow crammed into the space between their seats kept his course steady. 

Gripps and Cross had a steady game of checkers going in the back, and he could hear Vogel shouting through his duties as referee. Taking them anywhere _near_ Blackwing, putting _any_ of them in danger, felt _wrong wrong wrong_ in a slimy, salty way in the back of his throat, and he didn’t like it. 

But he trusted Drummer, and her vision, and if she was right and it _was_ a kid who’d been messing with his head— 

A kid stuck in Blackwing with _Oz—_

“Speed limit’s about twenty the other direction,” said Amanda, and Martin eased his foot off the pedal. The universe could only do so much about speed traps and bored cops, after all, and it wouldn’t help them a bit to get pulled over for speeding. “You okay?” A beat. “Stupid question, huh.” 

“Y’ain’t stupid,” he said, and Rainbow bobbed her head in an enthusiastic nod, bumping her shoulder into Amanda’s knee, a Twizzler dangling from her mouth. “This ain’t easy for any of us.” 

“Bad shit,” came Cross’s voice from behind him, and Vogel shouted a foul as he snickered. “Rancid, yucky shit, can’t get out of your mouth.” 

“Bad tastes,” said Gripps. 

“Yeah, bad tastes.” 

Martin could taste it, even then, in the back of his mouth, and he cleared his throat. “Don’ like th’ idea of takin’ you anywhere near that.” 

He would. Because she asked. And it was the right thing to do. 

But he didn’t have to _like_ it. 

Amanda’s hand drifted over and patted his arm. “I can go in by myse—” 

Martin stamped on the brakes, jolting the van, and Vogel yelled as Cross let out an _oomph_ as Gripps crashed into him and sent them both sliding into Rainbow. “No way in _hell,”_ said Martin, righting the van from its skid. 

“No bet, no bet,” said Cross firmly, and Beastie patted him on the head. “Rowdies stick _together.”_

“Not letting you face that _alone,”_ said Vogel, wrapping his arms around Amanda’s seat to hug her. “Promise not to go alone?” 

“Promise,” said Amanda softly. 

“Won’t be leavin’ us behind, Drummer,” said Martin. Wouldn’t. _Couldn’t._ Wasn’t any place she’d go that he— 

—that _they—_

—wouldn’t follow. 

—

They slept in the van that night, piled together in a tangled mess of limbs. Martin was last to settle beside the rest, restless despite the miles he knew they had left to go. Not nearly _enough_ space between them and _him,_ somewhere in that Blackwing facility, doing god knows what to more people like them. 

Martin listened to his Rowdies snoring, the night noises like any other, and he hoped like hell that next time they bunked down for the night, they’d be far, far away from the likes of Osmund Priest—

_—”I’d like that, too.”_

Martin blinked, and the van was gone, as was the night. It was sunny again, a light morning sunlight, and everything around him was green and flourishing, a lake sparkling in front of where he sat, legs outstretched, on a bench on a porch. 

“Took your time,” said Amanda, bumping her shoulder into his, and when he turned his head to look at her — her eyes weren’t right again, but it was her, alright — there was someone else sitting at her other side. 

A _kid._

Just a kid, in a tiny grey Blackwing jumpsuit that was more familiar to Martin than his jeans and vest would ever be, a charcoal stripe across the chest of it. 

Any lingering doubts he’d had that whoever this was wasn’t in Blackwing vanished. 

“Hi, Cam,” said Amanda warmly, smiling at the kid, her fingers tight around Martin’s hand. “We met before, do you remember me?” 

The kid nodded, curly, dark brown hair falling around his ears, hastily tucked back. “You weren’t supposed to be there,” he said. “Amanda. How were you there?” 

Amanda shrugged. “I don’t really understand myself,” she said. “Doesn’t matter how, though, just that I can. And _you’re_ the one making this dream, right?” 

The kid nodded again, glancing at Martin. “In his head,” he said. His voice was so _young._ “It’s easy, now that I’ve been there so much. Mr Priest—” He shook his head. “He said it had to be you.” The kid leaned forward, hunched over, the too-big uniform draping around his skinny body. “You said— you said you were coming, right? To get me?” 

“Yeah. You’re like us, Cam— A leaf. And we don’t leave anyone behind” Amanda assured him. “He’s keeping you at Blackwing, right?” 

Cam nodded, glancing out over the lake, and the environment _shifted,_ the pale sunlight fading til it was just shining through windows onto soft blue wallpaper, and the three of them were sitting on a bed. Everything felt _off,_ like it was a little too big, even Martin’s longer legs dangling above the floor, and when Amanda looked up at him her eyes were wide and galaxy dark again. 

“This was _your_ house,” she said, the words directed to Cam as the elephants painted onto the walls began to move, trundling slowly along the two-dimensional space of the wall. “That message— it was for _you.”_

“What message?” said Cam, brow furrowing, and Amanda’s grip on Martin’s hand became almost painful. He bit his tongue and said nothing, and a moment later the room darkened, becoming more like the abandoned house they had seen, and the brilliant red letters dripped down the wall as if freshly painted. “Oh,” he whispered. “They left.” 

“They’re waiting for you,” said Amanda, and the weight of the universe was in her words, the truth of them. If Martin hadn’t been holding her hand, he would’ve thought she was part of the dream. “And you’re waiting for us, aren’t you? We’ll try not to make you wait too long.” 

“I’ll be waiting for you. But I—” Tears welled in Cam’s eyes. “He might make me— do that again. Mess with your head.” 

Martin didn’t think — just reached over with his free hand and ruffled Cam’s curly hair, like he’d done to Vogel a million times, and the kid was as solid and real as Amanda was, right next to him. “Ain’t nothin’ you can do t’ hurt me, little one,” he said. He hoped. “Not now we know what’s comin’.” 

“He isn’t in here with you, is he?” asked Amanda, and Cam shook his head. 

“He’s not— _really_ here,” he said. “When he is. Just— like an image. Of him. And I can show him what’s going on, and he tells me what to— what to say, and how to change it.” He glanced up at Martin again, lightning quick. “The— memories.” 

“‘s all in the past,” said Martin. It wasn’t, not with Oz out there, tormenting this kid, but— 

_His_ torment. Martin’s. That was over. It had to be. 

Cam twisted around, face fearful, and he glanced at them. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I gotta go.” 

And he was gone, the abandoned house fading around them into glittering stars, and Amanda was still holding his hand, eyes reflecting the glittering spots of light around them. 

She smiled. 

“Time to wake up.” 

—

There was a recurring dream Martin had, one that could drift away into a near forgotten memory only to settle mufflingly over his subconsciousness the moment he began to dream. And this close to their destination, it settled heavy in his mind as he drove. 

It started out nice enough, just a semi-pleasant memory of a road trip, just him and Oz. He’d called it a “brother road trip,” and while Martin wasn’t expecting Oz to bring him to a beach to drink beers together or anything, a road trip was an almost _safe_ time to be together. 

Oz would never let him drive, even though he’d been the one to teach him and to take him to the DMV to get the license in the first place, so Martin was in the passenger seat, and Oz’s hands were busy with the wheel and the signal and shifting gears and generally _not touching_ Martin. 

...safe. 

Martin didn’t even know where they were _going,_ and he supposed he should be at least a little concerned about that, but it was _nice_ to lean back in the seat and watch the world whisk by in a blur of places and trees and signs he didn’t bother to read, and prop his leg up a bit against the door pocket so it wouldn’t hurt as much. 

Sometimes it was nice to just give in to the fact that he didn’t have the least bit of control in his life, and let the universe — or rather, Oz — take him wherever it pleased. 

“Hungry, Marty?” said Oz, conversationally, like he wasn’t directing the truck into the parking lot of a diner, like Martin’s stomach hadn’t been growling for the past half hour. “This looks like a nice place, don’t it?” 

“Sure,” said Martin, the word rasping in his dry throat when Oz stared at him, waiting for a reply. Took a breath, when Oz just smiled. “Where— are we?” 

Oz shrugged, the motion fluid, practiced. “Somewhere with a silly name,” he said, and got out of the truck. Martin hurried to follow him, trying not to limp, and Oz’s smile widened. _“Duckbill’s Gambit._ Funny name, right? Sounds more like the name of a boat than a place, really.” 

The diner itself had a shining neon sign in front of it, the stylised slot machine in the bottom left corner flickering on occasion. _The Casino,_ it read, and if it hadn’t been for the tables set out on the covered patio and several people seated there eating, Martin wouldn’t have thought it was a diner at all. 

“Have a seat anywhere you like,” called a woman as she rushed by, her arms loaded down by heavy plates of food, and her smile flashed bright in Martin’s direction. “I’ll be right with you.” 

Martin slid into the booth Oz directed him to as his brother sat opposite him, hesitantly sliding one of the menus in front of himself when Oz picked up his own without comment. 

He didn’t _get_ diner food often, or much more than frozen dinners when Oz came home late and claimed he’d already eaten with coworkers and smelling of pizza or something spicy that lingered for hours on Martin’s tongue after he’d smelled it. He’d like to try it someday, but he didn’t dare ask Oz. 

The last time he’d asked for something, Oz had blacked out the windows in Martin’s room with thick paint and bolted them shut. 

He didn’t want to think what Oz would take from him _next._

“Check out the sandwiches, Marty,” said Oz with a warm smile as the waitress neared their table. “Looks like there’s one you could eat, if they leave the cheese off.” 

Martin had been eyeing the burgers, but he didn’t say so. 

“Dairy free?” said the waitress, casting a smile to Martin, and he just ducked his head, feeling the tips of his ears burn. “Don’t worry, hon, my sister is the same way, we’re very careful about cross-contamination.” 

“The turkey sandwich for my brother, then, without the cheese,” said Oz, and Martin closed the menu without a word, pushing it across the table. “For me, the cheeseburger with bacon and fries, if it’s not too much trouble.” 

“No trouble at all,” said the waitress. Martin’s glasses had slid down his nose, and he didn’t want to risk lifting his head to read her nametag as she picked up the menus with practiced speed. “Anything to drink?” 

“Water,” said Oz swiftly. “Been a hot day, hasn’t it?” 

“For the season? Oh, yes,” she said. “I’ll be right back with your waters, gentlemen.” And off she went. 

“Weird name for a diner,” commented Oz, settling back in his seat, and Martin shuffled his knees to the side so he wouldn’t get bumped. “Doesn’t have a slot machine or a poker table, anyway.”

Martin didn’t really _care_ — his stomach growled again as the waitress set down their waters and whisked herself away. Oz kept talking, his voice melding with the jazzy tune playing on the old jukebox near the bar, and Martin tried to pay attention. 

He was just so _hungry._

The waitress brought two plates for them — _platters,_ really, wide and white ceramic loaded with food — and set them before them. “Here you go, sweetie,” she said, pushing Martin’s plate firmly in front of him. “I made sure the fries weren’t done in the same oil as the cheesy ones, so they’re safe for you to eat. Can I get you gentlemen anything else?” 

“Oh, no thank you,” Oz said smoothly, smiling. “This is perfect.” 

Once the waitress had left to check on her next table, Martin descended on his food, scarfing down bite after bite of his plain turkey sandwich. 

“Careful there, Martin,” Oz warned, his voice gentle but there was always a little hidden threat underneath. “Wouldn’t want to make yourself sick, eating so fast.” 

He tried to slow down after that, making himself count long seconds between each bite, to chew each one thoroughly before swallowing. It was plain, and not what he was craving, but it was decent. Turkey, lettuce, tomato, mayo, on two bland slices of whole wheat bread. As boring as a diner sandwich could get, but decent. He was lucky Oz hadn’t asked them to leave off everything but the turkey, or to leave off the fries with some excuse about greasy foods.

He kept his gaze low as he ate, trying not to look at Oz’s burger, but the smell lingered around them strong. 

“This burger is delicious! Best I’ve had in a little while!” Oz exclaimed happily. “How’s your sandwich, Marty,” he asked with big raised eyebrows. Everything in Martin’s body wanted to scream, or to cry, but he kept his gaze lowered. “S’good,” he said softly, sticking a fry in his mouth and chewing slowly, carefully. 

All too soon the meal was over. His sandwich gone, Oz stealing the last of his fries, and his stomach churning with hunger and sickening regret. It wasn’t like the food really sated him, not when that _other_ hunger still scratched at his spine, making his stomach feel as hollow as it’d been before they’d stepped foot in the diner. 

“Here, sweetie,” said the nice waitress as she rounded on their table, setting a small plate in front of Martin, not waiting for Oz’s response before continuing. “My very own recipe, dairy free cherry pie. I think you’ll enjoy it. _And_ it’s today’s special,” she said with a wink, “along with apple and pecan—” 

Oz cleared his throat to get her attention and stop her list of desserts. “Unfortunately, my brother’s _delicate_ diet doesn’t handle heavy sugar, but thank you, ma’am,” he said smoothly. “I’ll make sure it isn’t wasted.” 

Martin tried not to feel too put out by that, even with his mouth watering at the scent wafting up from the plate in front of him, and he didn’t dare look up, for fear the waitress would see right through him and see how badly he wanted at least a bite. 

There was a tiny bird stenciled into the braided crust, beak open and tiny musical notes in front of its beak as if it were singing. 

“Oh, well if you’re sure,” she said with a shrug, and smiled warmly at Martin again. “Sorry, hon. I’ll just take those plates with me, and I’ll bring your check right out.” And then she was off again, disappearing into the kitchen with their empty plates in hand, and Oz was pulling the little plate of glistening pie away from Martin and in front of himself. 

“You didn’t need dessert anyway,” Oz said, shrugging one shoulder as he drove the fork into the pie. “Soon we’ll be back in the truck again, and then it’ll be just you, me, and the open road. Only a few more miles to go.”

That thought made Martin’s newly filled stomach drop, as he watched with barely concealed jealousy as Oz devoured the slice of pie. He had no idea what was in this area, so he had no clues as to where they could possibly be going. But the final destination, leaving the almost safety of the truck, couldn’t mean good things in his future. Oz only grinned at him and winked, paying the check and herding Martin back out to the truck. 

Martin hadn’t known that that sandwich and fries in the diner would’ve been his last meal in the outside world for several years. He hadn’t known that the memory of that cherry pie would go on to haunt him for each of those years, as he laid awake in his cell, thinking about how sweet and sticky it would have been on his tongue. 

He hadn’t known he’d dream of that afternoon, and he sure as hell hadn’t thought he’d ever see the place again. 

—

Martin flexed his hands on the wheel, guiding the Oh No Mobile off the pavement and onto the uneven dirt beside the road. “Walk from here,” he said, voice low, and it was a subdued, antsy band of Rowdies who piled out of the van, weapons of choice in hand and fists ready for violence. 

He could see the blinking sign of the Casino above the trees to their left, but he didn’t need to go to that diner again to know the way, didn’t need to have the door to that place opened to taste the faint memory smell of cherry pie. Didn’t know if he could bear to step through those doors, anyway. The diner sign was lit though, so he could assume it was still open and in business, at least. He wasn’t really sure how that made him feel.

No turning back now, not even if he listened to that little voice in the back of his head that was begging him to grab his Rowdies and turn tail and run — this was happening. He was going back to Blackwing. 

“Martin,” said Cross, and Martin closed the door to the driver’s side firmly, looking over to see the others gathered close. 

He was a little surprised none of them had _asked_ yet. 

“Premade path, yeah?” said Cross quietly, and Gripps was grim at his shoulder, both of them watching him in that careful, guarded way they had at times when memories of their time in Blackwing were strongest. Like they had a guess at what he was about to say, but didn’t want it to be true. 

Vogel was looking at him with wide eyes just like he had the day he’d been dumped in their cell for the first time, and Martin’s heart ached for all of them, that they’d be brought to Blackwing’s doorstep yet again. 

Couldn’t keep this from them any longer, though. 

“The, uh.” Martin cleared his throat, wondering when it had gotten so dry. “Th’ place we were in. When y’ were brought in— when Vogel was brought in. It wasn’t— wasn’t th’ first place they held me.” 

Gripps reached for him — of course it was Gripps, the first person he’d ever found a connection with, who was _like him_ — and Martin leaned into the hand on his shoulder, just a bit. 

“Hey,” said Cross, one second before he crushed Martin in a bear hug with Gripps, “no more secrets, yeah, boss?” 

Martin rested his head against Cross’s for a moment. “Yeah,” he said quietly, and shook himself when they finally released him. 

Amanda’s hand found his, fingers tracing lightly over the bandages before lacing her fingers with his. “We doing this?” 

“Yes, Boss,” drawled Martin, and squeezed her hand. “Let’s go, boys.” 

—

The dice were loud in their little plastic box, shaken firmly by Mr Priest’s hand. Cam waited dutifully for him to set the box down and lift the cover, then flipped over the small hourglass, reaching for his pencil hurriedly. He could see a few words taking shape already, but he didn’t have long to write them down. 

The door opened, and Cam flinched, ducking his head and peeking up through his eyelashes past the annoyed Mr Priest to the agent who had stepped into his room. 

“Did you forget,” said Mr Priest, the words feather light and weighted with impending violence, “that no one is to enter this room but me?” 

“S-sorry, sir,” said the agent. He wasn’t one Cam recognized, and he looked _nervous._ But not just of Mr Priest. “This couldn’t wait.” 

Mr Priest continued scribbling on his paper, his back to the door, and the agent. “And?” 

“We, uh—” The agent cleared his throat. “There appears to be someone— er, _someones,_ breaking into the facility.” 

Mr Priest’s pencil stilled. 

“We believe, uh, according to files,” continued the agent, when Mr Priest drew out the silence, “that four of them are Project Incubus.” 

_Project Incubus._

Cam didn’t know what that word meant, or which project they might be, but _four?_ Four people breaking into Blackwing? It seemed unreal. 

Mr Priest’s smile widened, something sickeningly like a jack o’ lantern’s, the smile that meant _trouble_ for Cam’s immediate future. 

Oh no. 

Oh _no._

“Well, well, well,” drawled Mr Priest, lowering his pencil to the table, neatly aligned with his paper full of scribbled words. “I _wonder_ what they’re looking for here, don’t you?” Cam stared back at him, eyes wide, and that grin widened. “Looks like we’re gonna have _visitors,_ Cameron.” 

Oh _shit._

Amanda, in the dream. She’d said she was coming. She must be _one_ of them, that Project Incubus. She must be _there._

And Mr Priest knew Cam had led them there. 

Amanda was in _danger._

—

They didn’t come across a single guard past the front gates, didn’t get shot at from the tall towers of the building. It was eerily silent and it made Martin’s skin crawl as they thundered through the halls. 

No guards was a bad sign, Martin could feel it, but they were making good distance, and the coloured bars on the walls signaling different sections were too damn familiar for it to be the wrong place. 

“Left,” he said, when Amanda hesitated in a four-way, and she nodded, stepping sideways to avoid being run over by Cross and his crowbar. The paint was grey, and faded memories of those hallways were more than enough to confirm that they were going the right way — if, at least, Blackwing hadn’t changed their colour-coded sorting system for the facility. 

“That’s it!” said Amanda, pointing, and there it was, on the wall beside a door, the symbol she’d described from her vision. The one he’d glimpsed on Cam’s jumpsuit. The little man with the triangle in his head.

“Could be a trap,” he said softly, and Amanda shrugged, hand already reaching for the door. 

“Could be. We can’t leave him here,” she said, and he nodded — of _course_ they couldn’t, but did she have to be so _reckless?_

Martin huffed out a laugh as the door finally gave under her hands and the Rowdies tumbled into the room — she was their Drummer girl. Reckless might as well be her middle name. 

Skidding to a halt on the shiny polished floor, looking across the room to an overturned table and scatter dice, seeing his twin holding a small figure in front of him with an arm around the kid’s neck, Martin realised he didn’t remember his _own_ middle name. 

“Let ‘m go,” he growled, the baseball bat in his hands creaking for how tight he was gripping it — his knuckles hurt, and he was pretty sure he’d split open the scabs again. The Rowdies had fanned out, inching closer with bristling weapons with every moment, Amanda stalking forward on point. 

“Hi, Cam,” she said, her voice calm despite the situation. Boots sounded behind them, and Martin could _taste_ the fear in the agents that marched into the room at their backs, shaking in their shiny uniforms. 

“Stand down,” said one of the agents, voice tinny through his helmet. 

Martin kept his eyes on Amanda. She, in turn, hadn’t looked away from Cam. 

From _Oz._

His twin looked a bit worse for the wear from their last meeting, the scar splitting down from scalp to chin startling by how _unlike_ his memories of Oz it was. This wasn’t the Oz he remembered. 

The animosity in that pale gaze, though, _that_ he remembered well. 

“Hey, Boss,” called Vogel, his voice practically _giddy,_ “duck!” 

Martin lunged forward as Amanda dropped into a crouch, and the whole _potato_ sailing from Vogel’s slingshot smacked Oz right between the eyes. It dropped down, bouncing off the back of the kid who slipped from Oz’s arms, and then Martin lost track of potato and boy as he rammed into Oz’s midsection. 

Oz twisted in his arms and cracked Martin across the ear with his elbow, and Martin lost his grip. “Is that any way to say hello, _brother?”_ sneered Oz, reaching for his belt, and the gun holstered there, and Martin punched him. 

Right in the teeth, in that smug, superficial smile. The bandages didn’t protect the fresh cuts on Martin’s hand anymore than they stopped Oz’s teeth from cutting into his own lip and bleeding freshly as he stumbled back. 

_“Well,”_ drawled Oz, the word accompanied by flecks of blood as he grinned with reddened teeth. “How ‘bout a little chess, brother? Why don’t we,” and he moved, catching hold of the front of Martin’s vest and _throwing_ him into the wall with a _thump,_ “take out the knight? Then all we’ll need to do is capture the _queen.”_

Martin coughed, pushing himself up. His boys were fighting the agents, by the door, and he could hear them shouting under the smacks of weapons on armor and flesh. Couldn’t _see_ them, what with his glasses having been knocked from his face when he’d hit the wall, but he could hear them. Still fighting. 

His ribs hurt. Breathing kinda hurt, too. But he still had enough breath to growl out, “Don’t you _touch_ her.” 

Oz unclipped his gun from his belt, and smiled at Martin. “I won’t have to.” 

And he raised his gun. 

—

When Vogel’s potato struck Priest in the face, Amanda was already moving, scuttling forward and reaching for Cam, who slid out from Priest’s loosened grasp and fell toward her. 

“Gotcha,” she murmured into his curly hair, hugging him close to her for a moment, using his weight to spin them around and get her body between his and Priest’s. 

Not that it mattered — Martin was on Priest already, a vicious growl rising from his chest. _Good._

“Rainbow,” said Amanda, and Beastie ducked under the legs of a soldier who an instant later was gifted with a brick to the helmet courtesy of Gripps, darting to Amanda and Cam. 

“Lookie there!” cooed Rainbow, booping Cam on the nose with one finger and smiling. “Bitty boy!” 

“Keep him safe,” Amanda instructed, passing him off to her. She looked to Cam one more time. “Leaves of the universe look out for each other. I told you we’d get you out.” She winked. “Stick with Rainbow and I’ll see you on the other side.” She gave them both a wicked grin before darting back off into the fray. 

She threw a few good punches as she made her way through the guards, looking for Martin and Priest again. 

But she didn’t have to look very hard. 

Her head whipped around when she heard Martin bellow a wretched cry, turning to find Priest’s gun aimed at her head. The boys were still fighting off the guards, but time seemed to freeze around her nonetheless, the fighting drifting to a hazy background. She looked from the gun to Martin’s fearful eyes. They both knew that if he made any move toward the gun, Priest would shoot instantly. 

Shoot _her._

And she had a feeling he wouldn’t miss this time, not like when she and Vogel had huddled in a bathtub behind a locked door, hoping the storm of bullets wouldn’t raze them to the ground. 

She caught a glimpse of rainbow hair, of Cam’s tear-streaked face tucked close to Beast’s side as she snarled and swatted away a guard’s baton. Saw Cross duck so Gripps’s swing wouldn’t behead him, and jam his own crowbar under the helmet of a guard and pop it off like he was shucking a clam. Vogel, beyond them, whacking an unhelmeted guard in the nose with the end of his slingshot and following it with a whack from his little league bat. 

If he shot her, then any one of them was next. 

_Her Rowdies._

_“Fuck,_ no,” said Amanda, and she breathed in deep, feeling for all that rage that flickered under her skin like a forest fire, and she called it up. 

Fucking _fuck,_ she hoped this worked. 

She hadn’t tried this trick since Wendimoor. She didn’t even know if it would _work,_ without the magical rules put in place there by Francis. 

Maybe she should invest in some brass knuckles. Or a taser. 

Or stop putting off figuring out what that weird wand she’d kept from Suzie Boreton after all that went down. 

_Anything_ besides borrowing a bat or a crowbar or whatever homecooked weapon Gripps and Vogel were experimenting with that week, something she could _really_ use to protect her Rowdies. 

Well, it had worked once, hadn’t it? 

...hadn’t it? 

“Fuck this,” she muttered, when Priest took a threatening step toward her and Martin growled, and raised her hands. 

It wasn’t _quite_ going into the Backstage. 

She just wanted to borrow a little bit of that energy again. 

“Please, please work,” she whispered, seeing that Martin was still watching her, eyes flicking back to Priest, still _waiting,_ for any opportunity to take down this man. 

Just a little leaf, borrowing some electricity. 

Amanda _roared,_ wrenching into the Backstage with both hands. Sparks alighted across her fingers and she let out a triumphant yell, looking up at Priest with steely determination as the blue lightning spread across her hands. “If you think, you can just hurt my friends. My _family._ Think again,” she growled. 

Priest looked unphased, an amused smirk on his lips. “You’re just another one of these projects, little girl,” he laughed. “You think you can touch me? How do you think I’ve survived around here as long as I have? And keeping control of this _monster_ for as long as I have?” He raised his eyebrows and motioned to Martin, who bared his teeth at him in an unhappy snarl. “All you atrocities and your crazy abilities can’t hurt me,” he said, smiling wickedly, keeping the gun leveled at her, finger curling over the trigger. 

The lightning crackled angrily down her shaking hands, her face hot with anger, and she felt _stronger,_ like every atom in her body was about to vibrate right out with how much power she was cradling close. 

Everything had a fuzzy blue tint to it, and she wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the light or not. 

Who cared? 

He’d called her Martin a _monster._

Her boys _atrocities._

_Atrocities._

Who even fucking used that word? 

Amanda snorted a laugh and raised her eyebrows at Priest. “Yeah? Well you haven’t met me yet.” She looked to Martin and nodded. 

He lunged forward and knocked the gun from Priest’s hands, throwing it to the side and wrestling him into a chokehold. The look on Priest’s face was not one she would soon forget. Neither was the scream he let out when she unleashed all that energy on him, freezing him in place. 

The lightning skittered over Priest in splintered arcs, sliding over Martin like nothing more than a caress, and he looked to her, grip firm, jaw set. 

Amanda just smiled, and hoped like hell all that electricity hadn’t made her hair stand on end. 

“Have at him, boys,” she said, her smile widening as the other Rowdies came up beside her, growling as one. “He’s all yours.”

She didn’t let up with her lightning, or whatever it was, and the Rowdies crowded around, the five of them making a lopsided circle with Priest struggling against Martin’s grip in the middle, his long legs kicking out at her. 

And her Rowdies opened their mouths and _fed._

Amanda remembered Vogel trying to feed on Priest before. 

She remembered the snap of his fingers in Priest’s hand, after, when he’d been unphased. 

If she put a little extra force into the lightning, just for that, just for the memory of those bones breaking, who was gonna know? 

Martin met her eyes over Priest’s head, tongue swiping over his lips, and let go of Priest, straightening. He looked _better,_ even with the dark smudges under his eyes from lack of good sleep — all of her boys did, nearly vibrating with that warm energy that came from having just fed. 

Watching her. Smiling, just the hint of it at the corner of his mouth. 

Looking like _himself_ again, as Gripps handed him his rescued glasses and he pushed them back up his nose. 

Amanda turned her gaze downward to the man sprawled on the floor, and Priest looked back up at her.

He _smiled,_ his face splitting into a wide, mocking laugh, for all that he didn’t seem to have the energy to lift his head from the floor. 

“Crispy fried chicken,” said Cross, not without a great deal of relish, and Vogel spat on the floor by Priest’s boots. 

A hand caught her sleeve — Amanda looked down, and it was Cam standing next to her, a whole head shorter than her and skinny as a rail, his uniform ill-fitting and pulled tight across his chest despite the way he hunched his shoulders to lessen it. 

He was _shaking,_ glancing quickly at Priest, then back at her, eyes wide and trusting, a flash of rainbow hair behind him as Beastie sidled up with a hoot of laughter. “You stopped him.” 

_“We_ stopped him,” said Amanda, and offered her hand — Cam’s hand in hers was small, and cold. She wondered if Gripps had any gloves in the van that might fit him. 

“You have stopped _nothing,”_ hissed Priest. “Cameron, these monsters are—” 

“They’re not monsters,” said Cam, his voice sharp, and he looked as surprised at his words as she was when Amanda glanced at his face. _“You’re_ the monster, Mr Priest.” He leaned against Amanda, and she nearly stumbled for how he was shaking. 

“Tha’s right,” said Martin softly, and he was beside her, offering his arms to Cam, and Cam put his arms around Martin’s neck so he could be lifted up onto the blonde’s hip, easy as pie. The bandages on his hand had slid loose, and under them Amanda could see the pale pink of fresh scars, already healed. 

She wanted to touch him, to see for herself that the injury was faded, but his hands were full of exhausted-looking kid, so she closed her fingers into fists, instead. She could touch later.

Martin tilted his head, looking down at Priest, his gaze resolute. “Ain’t that what y’ said?” he drawled, and he sounded almost _distant._ “No sympathy for monsters, right, Oz?” 

Priest said nothing, and neither did the Rowdies, tremulously silent, and Martin gave a short nod. 

“Goodbye, Oz,” he said softly, and didn’t wait for a response. 

Just turned away, hefting Cam more securely onto his hip, and walked away. 

Amanda looked down at the man on the floor, and she had nothing to say, either. “C’mon, boys,” she said, turning on her heel, and they followed her after Martin, like she knew they would. Gripps was handing Cam a hanky — the purple one with orange spots that Vogel seemed to prefer, and she had a feeling it came from his pocket — to blot the tears that were finally streaming down his young face, and Amanda kept her eyes on them. 

Her _family._

She didn’t look back. 

Priest, or _Oz,_ or whatever his name was, he could stay right there on the floor and rot for all she cared. 

—

Getting _out_ of Blackwing was almost as easy as getting _in_ — while they ran into more guards this time, presumably alerted by the ruckus they had already caused — but four fresh-fed Rowdies and a rainbow beast had more than enough devilry in them to toss those guards into walls or each other or simply topple them over with a well-placed swing to the knees. 

Amanda stuck to Martin, who moved steadily down the hallways like he knew where he was going. Tried not to think about why he probably did. Cam had his eyes squeezed shut, clinging to Martin like he was expecting him to disappear. 

“Stop! Halt!” yelled a guard, and Gripps just lowered his shoulder and barreled into him, rolling off of the downed guard in a somersault and continued on, nonplussed. Amanda made sure not to step on the guard’s fingers as she hopped over him, although she didn’t feel too bad about accidentally kicking him in the shin. 

Then they were out the door, and diving into the woods, crashing through the underbrush and dodging trees, spilling out to where they’d left the Oh No Mobile. 

“Down y’ get,” said Martin, waiting for Cam to nod before bending a bit to lower him back onto his feet in the grass. The kid stared at the van, jaw dropped. 

“This is _yours?”_ he said, racing around the van and reaching out tentatively to touch the messy paint. 

“All ours, all home,” said Cross, not without a bit of pride, and yanked open the doors at the back, gesturing in with a deep bow. “Jumping beans?” 

Cam blinked. Looked to Amanda curiously. 

She grinned. “Hop in,” she said, and Cam let Cross help him up into the van. Amanda moved around the van, going for the passenger’s side, and Martin was there, opening the door for her. “Hey,” she said, resting her hand on the door next to his, and he moved his fingers to cover hers. “You okay?” 

He tilted his head, looking down at her. “Are you?” he drawled, fishing out his packet of cigarettes and tapping one out, setting it to his lips. “Awful lot of witchakookoo stuff you did back there.” 

Amanda bumped her shoulder into his. “I feel _great,_ actually. Dunno, like— sorta like chugging a big energy drink, but _carbonated,_ y’know?” He snorted, smoke blowing down like a dragon from his nose, and she grinned. “Ready to blow this joint?” 

He raised an eyebrow at her. “What, y’ got one?” The _And ain’t sharing?_ went unsaid.

Amanda shoved him, and he grinned, climbing into the van and stepping over the sprawled legs of Vogel between the front seats to sit in the driver’s side. “Ask Cross, he had it last,” she said, taking her seat right before the van lurched toward the road. In the side mirror, she saw figures in black swarm out of the woods where they had just been, but they went no further than the gravel at the side of the road as the van took off. 

As an afterthought, Amanda stuck her hand out the window back at them, middle finger pointed skyward. 

—

Amanda fiddled with the radio, wanting a louder song rather than the static as the station they’d been tuned into faded, and Cam shuffled forward between the front seats, shaking one of the hanging chains off his shoulder, knobby knees up to his chin. He was wearing Gripp’s jacket over the crinkled grey of his Blackwing jumpsuit, which Amanda’s fingers itched to toss right into a fire — the jumpsuit, not the jacket, of course. 

“Um,” he said, voice soft, and he cleared his throat, his voice deepening just a little. “Thank you. For rescuing me.” 

Amanda learned back in her seat so she wasn’t crowding the kid, offering her friendliest smile. “‘Course we would,” she said. “You’re one of us.” 

She didn’t think about it before the words left her mouth, but when she said them, she knew they were _true._ Cam _was_ one of them. Just another leaf on the stream of creation. 

“It’s what we do,” she said, when Cam’s face just went red. Like a little tomato. “Sort of… fix things. Help people who’ve been knocked out of the stream. Help them back where they belong.” 

Cam’s eyes were wide, looking up at her. So _young._ “Can you— take me _home?”_

Amanda hesitated. Looked across to Martin, who glanced at her, his face perfectly calm as he guided the van down the road. “We’ve been to your house,” she said finally. “Nobody’s lived there in a long, long time.” 

Cam’s face fell. “Oh,” he said quietly. “I— _wondered._ If they stayed. But I guess— it’s been a long time, huh.” 

“Track ‘em down,” said Martin, his voice a low rumble, and Cam turned to look at him, face hopeful, before gazing back up at Amanda when Martin said nothing more. 

“I don’t know how to track down your parents,” Amanda admitted. _“But._ I know who _can.”_ She leaned forward and began digging through the glove compartment, shoving aside first aid, old wrappers, sunglasses, extra pads, a little action figure, extra gloves, papers, pens, old candy — where the hell _was_ that thing? 

Finally, with a triumphant cry, she pulled out her phone, which somehow was still holding a valiant charge of thirty percent battery. 

“Farah?” Martin asked, eyes still on the road as he drove. 

“Farah.” Amanda confirmed with a grin. She turned back to Cam, who looked confused, leaning up between the front seats, no longer hugging his legs so tightly to his chest. “Farah can find anyone,” she informed him. “She’s _badass.”_ She tapped the screen a few times and then held the phone to her ear. It only rang once before picking up. 

_“Amanda? Are you okay? Are you in trouble?”_ came the crackly voice of Farah on the other end. 

“Farah! Good to hear your voice!” Amanda grinned, and the boys in the back gave affirmative hoots and hollers in the background. “We’re okay! Been a little crazy, long story! But we have a kid here, and we need to track down his parents ASAP.”

_“On it.”_

It was a short call — Amanda relayed all the information she had, Cam supplying a few extra details he could think of, and then Farah had all the info she needed. It wasn’t long before they were saying goodbye. 

“Say hello to the boys for me! Bye, Farah! Love you!” 

_“Stay safe, Amanda! And likewise.”_ She could hear Farah’s little smile and it made her smile as they hung up. She stuck her phone in the cup holder.

“Okay! Farah said to keep driving back in the direction we’re going, and she’ll get back to us with more precise information as soon as she’s got it,” Amanda announced to the van. Martin gave a nod, and Cam was dragged back into the rear of the van by excited Rowdies. By the thumps and the sounds of fabric being thrown, they were ransacking the stash of clothes kept inside one of the trunk seats. 

_Good._

Amanda lounged back in her seat, propping one boot up against the dash, and waited for the phone to ring. 

—

The van had just passed a sign that Martin didn’t bother to read past _Welcome to_ — when a jarring jingle started up from the passenger side. By the time he glanced over, Amanda already had the phone to her ear. 

“Farah!” she said, boots sliding off the dash as she leaned forward, opening the glove compartment again and pulling out a messily folded map. “How are y—”

_“You’re going to meet his parents tomorrow for brunch at the Silver Diner, I’m texting you the address, it’s not too far from where you are now,”_ Farah announced in lieu of a greeting, the volume on the phone plenty loud for Martin to overhear. 

“Oh! Perfect! Dude, you’re the best, _thank_ you!” Amanda snapped the phone shut and tossed it into the glove compartment so she had both hands to spread out her map with a rustle. “Okay, there should be an exit somewhere around here…” 

Martin followed her directions, and it was dark by the time she pointed him into the parking lot of a nearly deserted campground — the only other vehicles were a battered old camper van, and the little yellow Volkswagen bug parked next to him. 

“The diner Farah told us about is like a mile up the road from here,” said Amanda, once Martin had gotten the van haphazardly parked on the other side of the lot and the rest had hurriedly vaulted out the back. “She said eleven, so. Brunch? We can hang here until we go meet up with them.” 

“Good plan, Drummer,” he drawled, and stayed where he was, still seated, when she didn’t get up, either. “Somethin’ on your mind?” 

Amanda opened her mouth, then closed it again, shaking her head slightly. “Never mind.” 

“Y’re thinkin’ about Todd, yeah,” he said, and she stared at him — it hadn’t really been a question, after all. He _knew_ her. 

“Yeah,” she said, her voice quiet. “I, um. Been thinking about maybe calling him. Or, a text, or something.” She shrugged. 

He nodded and kept looking at her, not offering any comments, waiting for her to continue. 

“Not yet. Not right now,” she shrugged again, glancing out the window and away from him, her gaze shifting to watch Vogel run by holding up a cushion, followed by Beastie with an armful of blankets. “Soon, though.”

Martin nodded at that, placing a hand over hers and tapping the back. “We back your play, Drummer. Whatever you wanna do.” He watched her for another moment, then nodded to himself and offered her a little smile. “Ready?”

Amanda took his hand and nodded. “Let’s get some food into that kid, he looks like he could use it. Who knows when or what Blackwing last gave him.” She frowned, squeezed his hand, and then hopped out of the van, leaving him to jump out and follow. 

— 

Amanda put the thought of Todd and brothers in general out of her head and dug out the pumpkin shaped candy she hadn’t gotten around to eating yet. When she got around to where Gripps was stoking the fire, Cross had already dragged out the cooler, obviously having the same thoughts she had been having about feeding their new friend. He was pulling out a pack of hotdogs while Vogel was running back over with roasting sticks in one hand and a slightly stale loaf of sliced bread in the other. 

“Boss!!!” he yelled excitedly as he came to a skidding stop beside her. “We got doggies!!!” 

Amanda grinned and couldn’t help but laugh, patting him on the back as he kept on running again towards the fire. Cam was sitting beside Gripps, clad in one of Vogel’s old sweaters and some sweatpants that she was kinda sure were hers but were too big on him anyway. He looked a little dazed, she thought, as he looked around at the rowdy chaos he had found himself in. But he looked happier than she had seen him look so far, so she figured that was win. 

“You ready for hotdogs?” Amanda asked him as she and Martin sat down. “We’ve got candy too,” she grinned, holding up the bag of pumpkins. “And I think—“ she looked to Martin for confirmation, “I think we still have some regular cider in the back of the van too, if you want some.” 

Martin thought for a moment and then nodded his agreement. “I can grab it,” he grunted, standing back up again and heading to the van before Cam could respond. 

Cam looked at her with big wide eyes and nodded. “Thank you. For all of it.” 

Amanda grinned and ruffled his hair. “I told you, Cam, we take care of our own. We’ve got you.”

“And that means dogs! Fresh off the press!” Vogel announced as he handed Cam a big stick with a hotdog stabbed on the end. “We got bread, too!” 

Martin came jogging back over with a jug of non-alcoholic cider and a handful of mismatched mugs. He howled loudly and happily as he plopped down on Amanda’s other side, starting the whole circle of Rowdies howling. Amanda grinned at Cam and threw her head back to howl along with her pack. 

It took a moment, but then Cam smiled, and he was howling, too. 

Amanda ate three hot dogs folded into slices of semi-toasted bread, and laughed so hard she almost had her hard cider come out her nose as Beast chased Vogel around the fire with a brandished, uncooked hotdog. She kept offering Cam the bag of candy, and before too long, the kid was up and running with them, fueled by sugar and giggles. 

Martin huffed a laugh at her side, and Amanda leaned back, flopping against his arm, tilting her head back to grin at him. The firelight glinted off of his glasses. “Wanna dance?” she said. 

“Y’ want music for that, Drummer?” 

She threw her nearly-empty can across the fire, and it was snatched from the air by Gripps without hesitation. He pouted when he found only a mouthful left and went to grab a fresh one. “Dance with me.” 

Martin shook his head slightly and pushed her gently off of him, but when he got up he went to the van, cranking the keys just enough to get the radio going, and a moment later the thumping bass spread over their little campsite. 

Amanda held out her hand when he came back, and he hauled her up to her feet, twirling her close to his body. “So I take it I can have this dance?” 

“If it please m’lady,” he drawled, and the laugh was startled out of her when he spun her again, out to the end of his arm. 

“It does,” she said, and yanked on _his_ hand, and he obligingly spun himself close to her. The music didn’t quite work for any sort of set steps, but it wasn’t like they needed any — just each other, dancing around the crackling fire amidst the frolicking of the others, the cool autumn air and the leaves crunching under their boots. 

And even later, much, much later, when the fire had burned down to embers and barely shed enough light to see by other than the moon, Amanda didn’t let go of Martin’s hand. He didn’t pull away, either, seemingly content to sip his beer in one hand and keep hold of her hand in the other as she leaned into him. 

She was finally starting to feel a little tired, after all the crazy that had happened that day. It seemed the others were, too, because the lot of them were all sprawled around the fire in various states of snoring. 

And the youngest...

Amanda peered over the fire and smiled fondly, spotting Cam passed out in a pile of blankets beside Cross. Yeah, he’d settled in well. 

“He’s a good kid,” Martin said, his voice low and a soft chuckle in the words, and she nodded. 

“He really is.” She leaned further against Martin, hearing the rustle of his can hitting the grass, and pulled his arm around her. “You think he’ll be okay?” 

Martin was silent for a moment. “Won’t be th’ same,” he said finally. “Said he was young, when they took him. Been there a long while, Drummer.” 

“They’ll be looking for him, won’t they,” she said, and felt him sigh. 

“Yeah,” he said. “That kind of power…” He cleared his throat. “An’ Oz will be after him. And us.” 

“Think we could just take Cam with us?” 

“He needs his family,” said Martin, and she nodded — she’d known the answer even before she’d asked. “‘s where he’s supposed to be.” He shifted his grip, and Amanda found herself cradled close to his chest. “Can’t protect ‘em forever.” 

“I wish we could,” said Amanda quietly, and Martin rested his chin on top of her head. She wished they could rescue them _all._ Anyone out there who had been or would be hunted down by Blackwing. “Do you think we could stop them?” When Martin didn’t answer, she added, “Blackwing. Like, stop them for good. Shut down the whole thing.” 

“Have t’ find ‘em, first.” 

Amanda looked up at the stars, barely dimmed to the west where the light pollution from the town drowned it out. Not much like the Backstage, here, but familiar enough. “I think we could do it,” she whispered to the stars. To the universe. 

Martin didn’t answer, and she realised by the slow steadiness of his breathing that he was asleep. 

She smiled up at the stars. 

— 

_The Silver Diner_ was just that — extremely silver, with chrome plating everywhere and grey cushions on the seats, grey and white lacy curtains drawn back from the windows, a rather cheerful shade of grey patterned wallpaper for the walls that weren’t covered in chrome decorations. The floor was a pleasant black and white checkered pattern, one that Vogel was delighted to skip from square to square.

In their outfits of varying shades of grey, the Rowdies fit right in. 

The waitress directed them to the only open booth — it was a tight squeeze with seven of them, and after a minute of squirming and squishing each other into the bench seats, the waitress took pity on them and brought over a chair to set at the end of the table, where Martin chose to sit instead of getting another elbow to the ribs from Cross. She took their drink orders and left them with a stack of menus to peruse, retreating back to the kitchen. 

“Sardine can,” commented Cross, and Amanda grinned, swiping a menu from the stack and pushing one to Cam across the table from her. 

“Yeah, it’s _packed_ in here. I hope they’ll be able to find us.” 

Martin flipped his menu around to the dessert page, just to look, and felt someone’s boots collide with his leg — a glance to his left showed Amanda grinning at him with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, and a moment letter his leg was trapped between hers. 

“Martin’s paying,” said Amanda to Cam, “so order whatever you want. I suggest french fries.” 

_“Lots_ of french fries,” said Vogel. 

“Milkshakes,” said Cross dreamily. 

“Dippin’ sauce?!” said Gripps, and Vogel nodded. 

_“Obv_ iously,” he said. And he grinned widely at the waitress as she stopped her scurrying pace beside their table. “The milkshakes are good, right?” 

“They sure are,” said the waitress with a smile, flipping open her notepad and readying her pen. “I’m partial to the strawberry one, myself. Now, what can I get you folks?”

Amanda nodded to Cam, who hesitantly looked up at the lady from behind his menu. 

“Could I please have a strawberry milkshake and fries, please?” he asked cautiously, still hidden behind his menu and peeking up at her. “And— and hashbrowns.” 

The waitress’s smile widened and she nodded, scribbling it down. “Of course, hon! And what about for the rest of you?” she asked, looking around the rest of the table. 

“A strawberry milkshake for me, too!” Vogel announced. “You can have some of mine,” he stage whispered to Beastie, who was smushed in beside him.

“And a chocolate one here,” Cross added with an exuberant nod. “Please!” he added after a moment when he remembered his manners. 

“Oh! Yeah! Please!” Vogel said belatedly, after his brother, grinning. 

“Could I get a cheeseburger, please?” Amanda asked, chuckling fondly at her boys. 

“And could I get a slice of th’ cherry pie, please, ma’am?” Martin asked. 

The waitress smiled and dutifully scribbled everything down, nodding along and chuckling at all of their excitement. “Of course! Will that be all for now?” 

Martin nodded and she was off again, bustling back to the kitchen to place their order. 

“You eat pie? I thought Rowdies didn’t eat?” Amanda asked with an amused look on her face, like they hadn’t had this conversation pretty often, any time he leaned in to steal her fries or take a bite of her dinner.

“Just this once,” he said with a wink, and she grinned at him. “Maybe I’ll share.” 

“Oh, _will_ you?” Amanda’s grinned widened. She hooked her ankles around one of his legs and dragged it closer to her under the table, and he let her. “Hey, Cam, what’s better, cherry pie or pumpkin?” 

“Pumpkin,” said Cam promptly, and this started an enthusiastic, _extremely_ opinionated back and forth around the table on the pros and cons of various pies. Martin leaned back in his chair, ignored the itch he had for a smoke, and just let himself _listen._

And soon enough, the waitress returned with a little cart loaded with their orders. “Give a holler if you need anything else, sweetpeas,” she said with a smile, placing each dish before the Rowdy who’d ordered it, and took her cart back to the kitchen, already smiling and greeting a new batch of customers who had crowded in. 

“You better save me at _least_ one bite,” said Amanda, already lifting her frankly _enormous_ burger to her mouth, and Martin’s mouth quirked up in part of a smile. He picked up his fork and set it to the slice of pie and— 

—there was a little bird carved into the crust, near the edge, before the crust spread into a lovely little braided pattern. The bird looked to be a robin, a little patch of red cherries peeking through its tiny crumb breast, and tiny musical notes led from its open beak to intertwine with the pattern on the crust. 

It wasn’t the same bird as had been on that piece of pie he’d never gotten to taste, all those years ago. But it was the same _hand_ that made it, put that little extra bit of detail for the love of creating something beautiful, that it might bring cheer to the person who received it. 

He could _taste_ that feeling, right down into the syrup of the filling, just from one bite. 

“Okay, if it’s _that_ good, I _definitely_ want to try it,” said Amanda, making grabby hands at his fork, and he grinned, dutifully scooping up another forkful, lifting it toward his mouth. “C’moooon, I’ll trade you a bite of my burger!” 

Martin paused, taking the time to consider her offer, and she made a face at him. 

_“Two_ bites?” 

Martin held out the fork to her, but instead of taking it, she just leaned forward and closed her mouth around the bite at the end, sitting back to chew and leaving him with an empty fork. 

“Okay, yeah, that’s really good pie,” she said, and Martin ducked his head as he got some more, hoping his ears weren’t as red as they felt. 

There was lots of laughter and jeers as they all tucked into their food, hands reaching across the table to dip fries in each others’ milkshakes. Vogel kept going off on excited rambling tangents and Rainbow would slowly slide his milkshake closer to her while he was distracted. Eventually there were only empty plates left, Cross and Vogel battling over who’s shake to dip the last fries in. 

Martin licked his lips as he finished the last two bites of Amanda’s burger, smirking as he watched her steal one of the last fries from Gripps. This would be a memory he held onto for a long time, his whole family safe and happy.

The waitress paused by their table, and she smiled warmly at Cam, holding out a small plate. “Here, hon,” she said, setting the plate with a slice of cheesecake decorated with strawberries. 

Cam’s eyes widened. “For me?” he said. “But— I didn’t order any.” The way his hands curled around the edges of the plate spoke volumes, though. 

The waitress just smiled. “It’s a gift,” she said. “You remind me of a boy I saw in a diner a long time ago. Just a little scrap of a thing, looked like he could use a slice of pie. _You,_ though, you definitely look like you could use a slice of cheesecake. Am I right?” 

Cam gave a slow nod, glancing quickly at Amanda as if to see if it was okay, and she smiled encouragingly, so he nodded more enthusiastically. “Thank you so much, ma’am.” 

“Of course, hon,” said the waitress. “A little dessert can bring a little bit of happiness, don’t you think?” Cam nodded again, tentatively smiling, and she smiled once more before heading on to the next table. 

Martin stared after her, seeing how genuinely happy she was as she interacted with the customers, eyes burning, and he looked away before the burning melted into anything more like liquid. Amanda was watching him, and he reached out — she didn’t hesitate, just took his hand. 

He didn’t know how that waitress ended up in this diner, so far away from the one he’d been to with Oz, or how the universe had arranged it that this would be where they were supposed to return Cam to his parents, but—

...he was glad he’d seen her again, just in passing as it was. Knew she was happy, that one of the few warm memories he had of the past was just as warm and wonderful in the present. 

Martin glanced at the clock on the wall above the front counter. The vague notion of _brunch_ hadn’t been a very clear meeting time, but surely the kid’s parents wouldn’t be late. 

He glanced over and saw Cam freeze, the kid’s eyes going big and wide as he stared across the room. Martin turned to follow his gaze all the way to the door, where a man and a woman stood looking around the diner, a little taste of desperation wafting through the smells of food. That, and the familiar curly dark hair of the woman was enough to clue him in. 

“Those your folks?” he asked with a small smile. The kid nodded quickly and the Rowdies shifted around to let him out of the booth. “Go get em, kid,” Martin chuckled. 

Cam didn’t hesitate, his shoes squeaking on the checkered floor, and his mother began to cry as Cam launched himself at them, pulled immediately into a tight hug by them both. 

“Holy shit, we did it,” said Amanda softly, and she had such a wide grin when he glanced at her that Martin was surprised it didn’t split her face in two. “We got him _home.”_

Martin nodded — he could _feel_ it, seeing Cam reunited with his parents. 

One little leaf back into the stream of creation where he belonged. 

“Bitty boy home,” said Rainbow happily, and Vogel and Cross pounded the table with delight, Gripps leaning over to ruffle Amanda’s hair proudly. 

“Yeah, Bitty boy home,” Martin agreed, and Amanda leaned into him. 

“So are we,” she said, and she was right. 

  
  
  



End file.
